This dissertation has been 64—3183 microfilmed exactly as received

MURPHY, John Leo, 1923- SOME PROBLEMS IN THE ANONYMOUS DRAMA OF THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE.

The University of Oklahoma, Ph.D., 1963 Language and Literature, modern

University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THE UNIVERSITÏ OP OKLAHOMA

GRADUATE COLLEGE

SOME PROBLEMS IN THE ANONYMOUS DRAMA

OP THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE

A DISSERTATION

SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE PACULTY

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OP PHILOSOPHY

BY

JOHN l V‘ MURPHY

Norman, Oklahoma

1963 SOME PROBLEMS IN THE ANONYMOUS DRAMA OF THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE

APPROVED BY

DISSERTATION COMMITTEE MAGISTRO ET AMIGO GARISSIMO

JOSEPH HANGOGK MARSHBÜRN

namque tu solebas meas esse allquid putare nugas

111 I should like above all to acknowledge my many obliga­ tions to Professor Calvin G, Thayer, Department of English,

University of Oklahoma, and director of this dissertation. My brother, Donald Murphy, and my mother, Mrs. Leo Murphy, gave help without which I could not have brought this study to a conclusion. Finally, I wish to give special thanks to the following professors for serving as members of my disser­ tation committee: Philip J, Nolan, Chairman, Department of

Classics, University of Oklahoma; Alphonse J, Fritz, Department of English, University of Oklahoma; Jack L, Kendall, Department of English, University of Oklahoma,

iv TABLE OP CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I. INTRODUCTION...... 1

II. LOCRINE AND SELIMUS: SOMÉT IMPLICATÏÔJJ3 OP THE BORROWINGS PROM SPENSER AND GREENE...... 7

III. LOCRINE: CONJECTURES AND ÏRPË5ENCES PROM QUARTO TO M A N U S C R I P T ...... 58

IV. SELIMUS: THE TEXT AND THE " l (5S5Le a t m a n u s c r i p t .... 105

V. SELIMUS: CONJECTURES AND INFERENCES PROM QUARTO TO MANUSCRIPT ...... l8l

VI. LOCRINE: A RECONSTRUCTED rilSï'ÔRÏ OP LOCRINE: POUL PAPERS TO QUARtO AND ITS CONNECTIONS WITH SELIMUS . . 199

Bibliography ...... 226

V SOME PROBLEMS IN THE ANONYMOUS DRAMA

OP THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Scholarly inquiry in the anonymous drama of the;

Elizabethan stage has generally centered around either of two interests. In the first instance, quite naturally, such inquiry has been primarily concerned to establish the author.

Shakespeare holds pride of place here, as one would expect. The "Shakespeare Apocrypha", plays attributed for one reason or another to Shakespeare, but generally denied a place in ttie canon, not only by Heminges and Condell, but by most later scholars, have nourished the study of the anonymous drama of his age for over three centuries. More recently, the growing interest in the canon of Marlowe, Peele, Greene,

Kyd, Webster, Chapman, Mars ton, and their lesser contempo­ raries has broadened and deepened this earlier and more special interest. The second center of interest for research sees in the anonymous drama a number of challenges to scholarly interpretation and conjecture in building up a coherent and comprehensive picture of the drama in the Tudor-Stewart age* 2

To reconstruct the manuscript that lies behind a printed

quarto, to clarify some obscure or disputed point of state

history, to see more clearly into the import of the organiza­

tion and personnel of the London companies on the drama of the

time, to trace out the literary influences on the drama both from dramatic and non-dramatic forms— all these, and many more, have been motives to prolonged research and brilliant interpre­ tation on the part of scholarly giants of our century.

Although inquiry has a tendency to center around one or the other of these two interests, any serious investiga­ tion quickly finds itself involved in an inextricable inter­ weaving of the two. Seeking a probable author for a play necessarily involves the fullest possible recreation of its context. But here, we may mark off a clear period in research.

The "new bibliography", now more than a half-century old, ushered in a new dispensation in the mapping out of the problems of literary study in this field. Brave men were before Agamemnon: Capell, Malone, Dyce, lÿ-cho Mommsen,

P. A. Daniel— these and many others often possessed amazing insight into problems, some of which have not been greatly advanced beyond the point where they were left by the learning and critical ability of these men. Nevertheless, no matter how far one's interests may range, and they should be as catholic as possible, the student of literature must be first and last a student of texts. The scholarly student of literature is, willy-nilly, a bibliographer; he cannot help himself. 3 Herein lies, I venture to think, the peculiar

fascination of the drama for the scholar. The drama is the one indisputably great and major form of literature in our culture which is preserved by texts but takes its character­

istic life and vital forms from the living voice of men, not from the written scroll or the printed page. More importantly,

it seeks its final realization in these translitérai forms.

Thus, its social base, both in its intimate life and in its

immediate appeal, has forced its great masters into a simi­ larly intimate and immediate involvement with the form and pressure of their times. And so, although the scholar must take some text as

his point of departure, in seeking any fullness of under­

standing of a problem in drama, he may never take the text

as his point of rest. But the text and what it may reveal to properly instructed attention is Ariadne's thread. With­

out this thread, even the most alert students will probably remain in the maze forever. The special merit of McKerrow,

Pollard, Greg, Chambers, and J, Dover Wilson is that they

saw this in all its force and clarity. Everyone now sees

that we must seek to determine what kind of a manuscript lies behind our printed quartos and folios and why this manuscript was prepared, if we are to arrive at any conclusions that can command the attention of thoughtful men. But this

inquiry may carry the danger of excessive narrowness by the very rigor with which its method has been developed by its exceptionally able practitioners. When this happens, all too often inquiry and certainty seem to dissolve in a wilderness of conjecture, inference, and contradictions which invests all efforts at clarification with a kind of a priori hope­ lessness. To read Kirchbaum on Pollard or Predson Bowers on practically anyone is to feel that bibliography is not so much a vade mecum as a pons asinorum.

This present study is primarily a bibliographical inquiry. Insofar as it has a conclusion, this conclusion is a highly tentative reconstruction of the major steps in the history of the text of Locrine, an anonymous drama, which survives in a single quarto edition printed in 1595. In intention and, I hope, by implication, the study has a more far-reaching aim. It seeks to show the need for some synthesis of present knowledge, but a synthesis reflecting an ordered methodology. I see the central dialec­ tic of scholarship as moving fruitfully between certainty and conjecture. Any theory is simply a conjecture comprehen­ sive enough to make all particular certainties coherent euid intelligible. Such a theory should open out at once a number of lines for further research by which its main presuppositions may be tested. In the following chapters, I review previous scholarship on particular matters, for example, the import of borrowings from Spenser on the problems of author and date of composition of Locrine. At once, this involves us 5 in the study of a conç>anlcn drama, also anonymous, Sellmus»

I offer evidence from my own study to supplement the evidence

collected by other scholars, but, my main endeavor is to suggest,

finally, the futility of seeking any further certainty in

these matters except in a larger context of textual and literary historical theory. I suggest that we have a vast

range of such knowledge, but that we lack equally comprehen­

sive theories with which to order our knowledge. This study,

of course, does not offer such theories; it does seek to

underline the necessity of creating these larger theoretical frames of reference if we are to make systematic progress in

our studies#

This line of thought especially suggests itself when

we turn to a close study of the texts in an effort to establish

the history of the manuscript that forms the printer's copy*

I think our texts offer pointers to probable truth, but we find ourselves stopped short by the absence of bold and com­ prehensive thought concerning the general nature of abridged

texts, reported texts, stolen texts, or even, "continuous

copy". In the nature of things, the modest limits of this

investigation force us to inconclusive results. Evidence is offered that would seem to establish strong grounds for

linking Robert Greene with crucial stages in the history of these two dramas, Locrine and Selimus. Yet, the absence of broad critical surveys of such features as the relationship of rhetorical figures to the chronology of drama leavesus 6 foi* the most part with little more than impressionistic judg­ ments and conclusions.

I wish to make it clear that none of the major problems raised in this study are taken to any stage of exhaustive inquiry. Any such inquiry would, of course, be a separate dissertation. I conceive this work to be a preliminary exercise clearing the ground for a larger work on some general problems of study in the drama from the founding of the Theater to the death of Queen Elizabeth. CHAPTER II

LOCRINE AND SELIMUS; SOME IMPLICATIONS OP THE

BORROWINGS PROM SPENSER AND GREENE

The past decade has seen several extended studies of

Locrine; Baldwin Maxwell In his Studies In the Shakespeare

Apocrypha, Irving Rlbner In his The English History Play In the Age of Shakespeare, and most recently, an extended dis­ cussion of date and authorship In T. W. Baldwin's On the

Literary Genetics of Shakespeare's Plays.^ As regards author, date, and relationship of Locrine and of Selimus, the work of Professor Maxwell and of Professor Baldwin Is a basic point of departure for all further textual study. I seek only to carry their analyses a small way beyond that point where they left them. And so, as with all things, we begin at the beginning. Locrine, so far as present knowledge extends, exists^" only In quarto form, with a date of 1595. There are five known copies of this quarto. No other text In whole or In part. In manuscript or In print. Is presently available.

^Baldwin Maxwell, Studies In the Shakespeye Apocrypha (New York: King's Crown Press, 1956)1 Irving Rlbuer. %ie English History Play In the Age of Shakespeare, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957iî T. W. Baldwin, On the Literary Genetics of Shakespeare's Plays (Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1959/1 8

Thomas Creede, printer of London, entered in the Stationer's Register, July 20, 1594 as follows:

xx9 die lullj [15941

Entred for his Copie under thandes of the Wardens. The lamentable Tragedle of Locrine, the eldest Thomas sonne of Kinge Brutus, dlscourslnge the warres Creede of the Brlttans &... vjd

[Arber's Transcript, II. 656]^ In 1908, R. B. McKerrow published the standard text In the Malone Society Reprints. In this edition, McKerrow gives a facsimile copy of the title page of the

Bodleian Quarto. The title runs: The Lamentable Tragedle of Locrine, the eldest sonne of King Brutus, discoursing the warres of the Britalnes, and Hunnes, with their discomfiture;

The Britalnes vlctorle with their Accidents, and the death of Albanact. No less pleasant than profitable/ Newly set foorth, overseene and corrected. By W.S. The Impresa of Creede then fills the lower center, and, at the bottom, we read,

London/ Printed by Thomas Creede./ 1595.3 The W.S. listed as the one who has "newly set foorth, overseene, and corrected" this tragedy may be the reason for

Its Inclusion in the third folio of Shakespeare's works In

1664. During most of the nineteenth century and into the present, this ascription to Shakespeare occasioned the main line of scholarly Interest In the play. Since the time of

^The Tragedy of Locrine, Ed. Ronald B. McKerrow (Malone Society Reprints; Oxford: H. Hart, 1908).

3lbld.. A2 RECTO (BODL.). E. K. Chamber's Elizabethan Stage and C. P. Tucker Brooke's

edition in 1908 of the Shakespeare Apocrypha, however, interest in the play has shifted from that of proving or dis­ proving Shakespearean authorship and has centered, rather, on general issues of bibliographical and literary historical interest.

Although the title-page gives us 1595 as a terminus ad quem for the play in its present form, the reference to its having been "newly set forth, overseene and corrected" establishes the possibility that we have here an old play revised. The amount and detail of scholarly inquiry that has gone into the unraveling of the tangled relationships is immense; still, it seems necessary that every item be examined afresh, every chain in every argument be tested once more, if the present state of the question is to move to any clear resolution. The only known edition of the Tragical Raigne of

Selimus is the quarto printed by Thomas Creede, printer of Locrine. with the date 1594. Five copies of this original issue are presently known. No entry of Selimus has been found on the Stationers' Registers. The standard edition is the Malone Society Reprint edited by W. Bang in 190& The major relationship between the published version of Locrine and the published version of Selimus involves

Spenser's "The Ruines of Rome," from his Complaints. The

Complaints was entered in the Stationers' Register 29 December 10

1590 and contains in one section, "The Ruines of Time," a

reference to the death of Sir Francis Walsingham, the date

of which is 6 April 1590. J. W. Cunliffe in the Cambridge

History of English Literature drew together in 1910 the

combined efforts of six scholars seeking to make clear the

nature of the relationship between the quartos as established by the Spenser borrowings, and offered a Judgment of his own.

Spenser's lines are followed by the agreed upon borrowings in Locrine and Selimus.

The Ruines of Rome. 149-160:

!Bien gan that Nation, th'earths new giant brood, * To dart abroad the thunder bolts of warre, * And, beating downe these walls with furious mood Into her mothers bosome, all did marre; To th' end that none, all were it Jove his sire. Should boast himselfe of the Romane Empire. XII Like as whilome the children of the earth * Heapt hils on hlls to scale the starrle skie. And fight against the gods of heavenly berth. Whiles Jove at them his thunderbolts let file; All suddenly with lightning overthrowne, * The furious squadrons downe to ground did fall.

(The lines copies are marked with an asterisk.)^

Lines 800 and following in Locrine are preceded in the

McKerrow edition by the following:

The sixt Act.

Sound the alarme. Enter Humber and his souldiers. (Line Boo) Hum. How brauely this yoong Brittain Albanact

^J. W. Cunliffe, "Early English Tragedy," CHEL, ed. A. W. Ward and A. R. Waller, (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1910), V, 96. 11

* Darteth abroad the thunderbolts of warre, * Beating down millions with his furious moode; And In his glorle triumphs ouer all, Moulng the massle squadrants of the ground; * Heape hills on hills, to scale the starrle skle. When Brlareus armed with an hundreth hands Ploong forth an hundreth mountains at great loue. And when the monstrous giant Monlchus Hurld mount Ollmpus at great Mars his targe. And shot huge Caedars at Mlneruas shield; How doth he ouerlooke with hautle front My fleeting hostes, and lifts his loftle face Against us all that now do feare his force. Like as we see the wrathfull sea from farre In a great mountalne heapt with hideous noise With thousand blllowes beat against the ships. And tosse them In the waues like tennis balls.3 In Bang's edition of Selimus at Line 412 we have

Selimus say to SlnaJA, his counselor: Slnam If they or twentle such as they. Had twentle seuerall Armies In the field. If Selimus were once your Emperour, * Ide dart abroad the thunderbolts of warre, g * And mow their harflfesse squadrons to the ground,

Slnam and Selimus continue In lines to which we must return later for detailed consideration, but for the nonce

we go on. At Line 2416, Selimus speaks to Hall, a Janissary,

and refers to Acomat's Queen: Strangle her Hall, let her scold no more. Now let us march to meet with Acomat, He brings with him that great Aegyptlan bug. Strong Tonombey, Usan-Cassanos sonne. But we shall soone with our fine tempered swords, Engraue our prowesse on their buganets. Were they as mlghtle and as fell of force. As those old earth-bred brethren, which once Heape hill on hill to scale the starrle skle. When Brlareus arm'd with a hundreth hands.

^Locrine, Lines 800-820. 6The Tragical Reign of Selimus, ed. W. Bang (Malone Society Reprints,' Chftswlck, England: Charles Whlttlngham and Co., 1908), Lines 4l2-4l6. 12

Flung foorth a hundreth mountalnes at great loue. And when the monstrous giant Monlchus Hurld mount Ollmpus at great Mars his targe, 7 And darted cedars at Mlneruas shield. Exeunt All.'

Cunliffe Insisted that the weight of all the evidence established that the author of Sellmus had borrowed the lines

of Spenser's Complaints directly from the text of Locrine.

He placed special Importance on the study then In his hands Q of Frank C. Hubbard. Some six years later, Mr. Hubbard published his full-dress account In Shakespeare Studies by members of the Department of English In the University of Wisconsin. Since every serious attempt to establish the author and date of Locrine has referred to Mr. Hubbard's study, I give his central thesis; If we assume that Sellmus Is copied by Locrine here, we are compelled to believe that the author of Locrine made up the passage In question of two passages from Sellmus far apart, a passage from the Ruines of Rome not used by the author of Sellmus, and Inserted lines of his own. It Is surely much more probable that the author of Locrine borrowed from two passages of the Ruines of Rome. Inserting lines of his own and that the author ot Sellmus borrowed lines from Locrine. putting them In two parts of his play. This probability becomes almost a certainty when we remember that Sellmus has nothing from Spenser's Complaints (with the possible exception of a single line; not found In Locrine. while Locrine has much from the Complaints not found In Sellmus.9

Tibld., Lines 2416-2429. ^Cunliffe, o£. cit., pp. 95-96. 9prank G. Hubbard, "Locrine and Sellmus." Shakespeare Studies (The Department of English In the University of Wisconsin; Madison: 1916), p. 25. 13

Baldwin Maxwell rightly Judges that "this is a strong argument and has, I believe, convinced nearly all critics."10 Nevertheless, the matter seems much more

Involved than has hitherto appeared.

In the Times Literary Supplement. August 12, 1944, Mr. Kenneth Muir published a letter on Sellmus and Locrine

which has, since then, attracted wide and favorable notice. Mr. Muir makes several cogent points, but seems Indifferent

to Implications of his material which might suggest a rather different line of analysis. He feels that the only weak point

In the argument of those who would see the author or reviser of Sellmus as borrowing the Spenser-Complalnt passages directly from Locrine and not from Spenser's published work

Is that one line of Sellmus would seem to be an echo of a line from the Spenser poem and this line does not appear In the published quarto of Locrine. We recall that Spenser began stanza XVI of the "Ruins of Rome" with the line, "Like as whilome the children of the earth/ Heapt hlls on hlls to scale the starrle skle, . . Most critics have agreed that In Lines 2422-2433, the author of Sellmus Is adapting and quoting this Spenserian passage. The Sellmus lines are

"As those old earth-bred brethren, which once/ Heape (sic) hill on hill to scale the starrle skle." We recall that Locrine, Line 805 reads "Heape hills,

^^Meixwell, op. cit., p. 54.

llOunllffe, 0£. cit., P. 96. 14

to scale the starrle skle" but Line 804, says nothing about children of the earthe or "earth-bred Brethren," and completes a previous section with the line "Moulng the massle squadrants of the ground." It Is thus perfectly clear that the contention that the author of Sellmus borrowed directly and exclusively from the author of Locrine because of the Spenser Complaint passages, must explain the presence of the earth-bred brethren passage In Sellmus. Professor Muir's solution Is certainly Ingenious.

Both plays are full of misprints. It Is customary to emend "Moulng" to "Mowing" (Locrine, 807) and "Heape" to "Heapt" (Sellmus, 2424). [me word "Heape" In the Locrine passage also requires emendation; and though It may be Justifiable poetic licence to speak of Albanact beating down millions. It Is a mere absurdity to say that he heaps "hills on hills to scale the starry sky". The explanation Is simple. Albanact Is being compared to the "earthborn brethren", and the first line of the simile has been omitted by the printer. Tlie author must have written; As those old earth-bred brethren, which once,/ Heapt hills on hills etc. . . . The author of Sellmus borrowed these and the four succeeding lines from Locrine. There Is no need to assume that he read the "Complaints." Locrine, though published a year after Sellmus, was written before It.12

Professor Muir's last words remind us that It Is most salutary to recall that although Locrine was entered on the Stationers' Register In 1594, the Creede quarto bears a title-page date of 1595. Sellmus Is not entered on the Stationers' Register, but bears a title page date of

l^Kenneth Muir, Letter to Editor, The Times Literary Supplement (London: August 12, 1944). 15

1594. One sees that a necessary Implication of Mr. îftiir's analysis is that the author of Selimus was able to see the manuscript of Locrine. This would imply one of several possibilities: (l) the author or reviser of Selimus was in fact the reviser or author of Locrine, (2) the reviser-author of Selimus was such a close friend or favoured acquaintance of the author-reviser of Locrine that the latter allowed him to use the manuscript for any purpose he chose, (3) the author-reviser of Selimus had access to the manuscript or pre­ publication copy of Locrine by means of Thomas Creede, the printer (one recalls that Creede is the printer of both plays), and (4) the author reviser of Selimus was in the employ of the company that owned the old and/or new copy of Locrine and this company had allowed the Selimus author/reviser to use their manuscript copy on preparing Selimus either for stage presentation or for publication* Each of these possibilities merits full-dress analysis. We must, however, focus our critical attention more narrowly on the use of these lines from Spenser's Complaints, "üQie Ruine of Rome". We should keep in mind that every critic who has insisted that the author of Selimus never glanced at Spenser’s Complaints but took the passages only from Locrine agrees, in Professor Muir's statement, that "he, [the Selimus author] unlike the author of Locrine, borrows many passages from the "Faerie Queene."^^

l^Ibid. 16

As a final complication. Maxwell has correctly pointed out

that "in certain respects the play [Locrine] agrees with no

extant version of the Locrine saga other than that told in Book II of the Faerie Queene . .

Within the narrow compass of the borrowings from Spenser’s Complaints, let us examine the implications of our

first possibility. The author and/or reviser of Locrine and the author and/or reviser of Selimus are one and the same person. The difficulty in such an assumption is a negative

one but fairly troubling all the same. The force of the difficulty lies in the application of the borrowed lines to the dramatic context of the play. We are asked by seventy- five years of criticism to assume that the author of Locrine had either the manuscript or published copy of Spenser’s

Complaints before him. What would he find? Spenser clearly indicates in his Envoy to this sonnet-sequence, that he has here offered a translation of the French poet Joachim du

Bellay’s Antiquités de Rome. Du Bellay, in Spenser’s dress, has offered a much more interesting use of these images and phrases than one might guess from reading the scholarly articles concerned with their relationship to

Locrine and Selimus. A series of sonnets and passages should serve to make this clear. The poem itself is a sequence of thirty-two sonnets, to which Spenser added an

^^axwell, o£». cit., pp. 38-39. ^^Ecjmund Spenser, Complaints, ed. W. Renwick (London: The Scholartis Press, 192Ü), pp. 130-131. 17

Envoy, praising du Bellay's poetry but calling in du Bartas as the poet whose true "heavenly muse" would eternize the glory of French verse in his age, a typical gesture to establish Spenser's orthodox protestantism. This last might be thought by some readers to be compromised by his compliment to the verse of the Catholic poet, du Bellay. In any case, the sequence opens with an apostrophe to the "monuments historiques" of Rome, skillfully building to a climax by an ingenious survey of the architectural claims to fame that all of the remainder of antiquity could put forth and then picturing their apotheosis in the historic architecture of the great. Imperial City. The remainder of the Sonnets weave lament and philosophic meditations on mutability into an interpretation of Roman History, the city in historic time.

Sonnet Four introduces the first of the figures that concern us at the moment. She, whose high top above the starres did sore. One foote on Thetis, th'other on the Morning, One hand on Scythia, th'other on the More, Both heaven and earth in roundnesse compassing, Jove fearing, least if she should greater growe. The old Giants should once againe uprise. Her whelm'd with hills, these 7. hils, which be nowe Tombes of her greatnes, which did threate the skies: Upon her head he heapt Mount Saturnal, Upon her bellie th'antique Palatine, Upon her stomacke laid Mount Quirinal, On her left hand the noysome Esquiline, And Caelian on the right; but both her feete Mount Viminal and Avetine doo meete.lo

iGlbid., p. 1 1 8 . 18

Not only is the figure of the seven hills and the body of Rome apt to strike us as grotesque, but I feel some confusion in trying to understand the figure. Presumably we are meant to believe, if only symbolically, that after

Rome became master of the Mediterannean world, Jove altered the topography of the city in order to repress her dangerous pride. The figure does make clear that the Romans might be led to re-embody the Titans and their struggle against the

Olympian Gods. The difficulty in the figure comes, of course, from the fact that the ruins of Rome, ostensibly the point of departure for the whole work, are on top of these hills with which Jove has whelm'd the city. In any event, the sequence goes on to tell us how Rome completed the subjection of the known world: But they at last, there being then not living An Hercules, so ranke seed to represse; Emongst themselves with cruell furie striving. Mow'd downe themselves with slaughter mercilesse; Renewing in themselves that rage unkinde. Which whilom did those earthborn brethren blinde. 11 Mars shaming to have given so great head To his off-spring, that mortall puissaunce puft up with pride of Romane hardiehead. Seem'd above heavens powre it selfe to advaunce; Cooling againe his former kindled heate. With which he had those Romane spirits fild; Did blowe new fire, and with enflamed breath. Into the Gothieke colde hot rage instil'd: Then gan that Nation, th'earths new Giant brood. To dart abroad the thunder bolts of warre. And beating downe these walls with furious mood Into her mothers bosome, all did marre; To the end that none, all were it Jove his sire Should boast himselfe of the Romane Empire. 12 Like as whilome the children of the earth Heapt hils on hils, to scale the starrie skie. 19

And fight against the Gods of heavenly berth Whiles Jove at them his thunderbolts let file; All suddenly with lightning overthrowne. The furious squadrons downe to ground did fall. That th'earth under her childrens weight did grone. And th'heavens In glorle trlumpt over all: So did that haughtle front which heaped was On these seven Romane hlls. It selfe upreare Over the world, and lift her loftle face Against the heaven, that gan her force to feare. But now these scorned fields bemone her fall. And Gods secure feare not her force at all. 17 So long as Joves great Bird did make his flight. Bearing the fire with which heaven doth us fray. Heaven had not feare of that presumptous might. With which the Glaunts did the Gods assay. But all so soone, as scortchlng Sunne had brent His wings, which wont the earth to overspredd. The earth out of her massle wombe forth sent That antique horror, which made heaven adredd. Then was the Germane Raven In disguise That Romane Eagle seene to cleave asunder. And towards heaven freshly to arise Out of these mountalnes, now consum'd to pouder. In which the foule that serves to beare the lightning. Is now no more seen flying, nor alighting. 18

till th' heaven It selfe opposing gainst her might. Her power to Peters successor betooke; Who shepheardllke, (as fates the same foreseeing) Doth shew, that all things turne to their first being.17

This last passage refers to du Bellay's presenta­ tion of the shepherd cottages and the shepherd's life as the pristine form of Roman life. The shepherd power of the

Papacy has returned It to this form, but Its Imperial power has passed away for ever. When we return to the dramatic context of Locrine,

Humber, the Scythian king, a bad character. Is characterizing,

ITlbld., pp. 121-124. 20 in a monologue, the Britain King, Albanact, a son of Trojan Brute.

How brauely this yoong Brittain Albanact Darteth abroad the thunderbolts of warre. Beating down millions with his furious moode;^®

Whatever may be the cause, we have here a most extraordinary change of application. ïhe Scythian king applied the lines accorded to the Goths and Germans to the

Roman * s kinsman, Albanact. But in the iimnediately following line "And in his glorie triumphs over all," the Locrine author adapts Line 8 of Sonnet 12 which refers to Jove's triumph, "And th'heavens in glorie triumph over all." Now let us add Professor Muir's emendation which has been so widely accepted as having saved the day. We recall that the copied line is given us in Selimus but that the printer left it out of Locrine. As those old earth-bred brethren, which once Heapt hills on hills,

Now the Locrine author has taken leave of phrases descriptive of Jove and has at once returned to lines which in du Bellay- Spenser characterize the Giants-Titans. One may argue, with some plausibility, I suppose, that the Locrine author was uninterested in discriminating the pattern of phrases from the Complaints to his play in any systematic fashion; he wanted merely to fill Humber's speech with high-flown rhetoric.

l^Locrine, Lines 803-805. ^9selimus, Lines 2423-2424. 21

This may Indeed be the case. It would not, however, es­

tablish of itself, a close, detailed, exact reading of

Spenser's translation by the Locrine-author. He could have pulled these phrases, pell-mell, either from Spenser or from Selimus.

When we return to Selimus and to the use the author- reviser made of the Spenser lines, if he took the lines from Locrine, as he probably did, he made the sense of the lines serve his dramatic context and purposes of characterization more smoothly than is the case in Locrine. A reasonably attentive reader of the two plays must be struck by the immensely superior quality of the major part of the verse of Selimus to that of Locrine. As Charles Crawford^® and

Professor Hubbard^^ have so rightly stressed, one finds it impossible to believe that the same man could have been the author of the greater part of both plays. It is, however, possible that the same man could have been the reviser of both plays; this would account for the use of the passages from "The Ruins of Rome." Perhaps a minor difficulty here is that the reviser of Selimus shows a through familiarity with the Faerie Queene; Locrine betrays not one instance of verbal borrowing from Spenser's master-work, which, although

BOcharles Crawford, Collectanea (First Series; Stratford-on-Avon: Shakespeare Head Press, 1906) p. 8 5 .

^^Hubbard, op. cit., passim. 22

known In manuscript at least as early as I588, began to appear in print only in 1590.22

Although we must postpone at this juncture the pursuit of the baffling yet intriguing questions that surround

Selimus, for example, the possibility of its dating in original

form from the late sixties or 1 5 7 0 *s?3 the following passage should give any student of the drama of these years pause,

forcing him to realize that the problems of this play, Selimus,

constitute a major crux in our understanding of the greatest drama of the period. Selimus in the course of a single speech one hundred and fifty lines long opens with a typical Lucretian and "atheist" view of the origins of religion, kingship, and law.

He continues:

Indeed I must confesse they are not bad. Because they keep the baser sort in feare: But we, whose minde in heauenly thoughts is clad. Whose bodie doth a glorious spirit beare, •niat hath no bounds but flieth everywhere. Why should we seeke to make that soule a slave. To which dame Nature so large freedome gave. Amongst us men, there is some difference. Of actions tearmed by us good or ill: As he that doth his father recompence. Differs from him that doth his father kill. And yet I thinke, thinke other what they will. That Parricides, when death hath given them rest. Shall have as good a part as the rest. And thats just nothing, for as I suppose In deaths voyd kingdoms raignes eternall night; Secure of evil and secure of foes.

22crawford, o£. cit., passim.

23Baldwin, 0£. cit., p. 226. 23

Where nothing doth the wicked man affright. No more then him that dies In doing right. Then since In death nothing shall to us fall. Here while I live, lie haue a snatch at all.24

It Is tantalizing and, perhaps Ironic, to recall the opening lines of Marlowe's Tamburlalne; "Prom jigging veins

of rhyming mother wits." The Selimus author may Indeed have

been Imitating Marlowe's Tamburlalne, but It Is difficult to believe that any dramatic poet of this power would have been writing In the old rhymed-stanza forms with single speeches one hundred and fifty lines In length after I587.

Thus, to sum up the first stage of our Inquiry, we find that, although It would seem difficult to refute the contention that the author-reviser of Locrine had the 1591 edition of Spenser's Complaints before him, either In print, or If earlier. In manuscript, one must be struck by the complete disregard of their Initial context shown by the adapter In his use of Spenser's lines. Fairly extensive borrowings were made from others of the Minor Poems of Spenser, but since these are not used In Selimus, they fall outside our consideration. If the reviser of these two plays Is but one person, then one would have to suppose that his earlier

Interest, probably during or after 1591, In the Complaints of Spenser led him to go on to his reading of the Faerie Queene and his more effective blending of the borrowed lines

Into the general dramatic situation. In any case, we are left

2^Sellmus, Lines 347-367. 24

with the near certainty that the reviser of Selimus must have had access to the manuscript of Locrine, Could we find an independent source for the passage

When Briareus arm'd with a hundredth hands. Flung foorth a hundreth mountaines at great loue. And when the monstrous giant Monichus Hurld mount Olimpus at great Mars his targe. And darted cedars at Mineruas shield.25 we might possibly be able to come more closely to grips with this problem of the order of revision of the two plays. The source is certainly not Spenser, since the distinctive proper names of the passage do not appear in these contexts in his poetry.26

One might ask why a reviser of Locrine and a reviser of Selimus might not each have had a copy of Spenser's Complaints before him while he was at work. Here, I must confess, I feel the force of the counter-argument that it would be most unusual were two persons, separately, to read Spenser's original poem, and each take one line applied in the first instance to the Ooths, "To dart abroad the thunder­ bolts of War" and blend this in one passage with a line originally applied to Jove fighting against the Giants, "The furious squadrons downe to ground did fall." Selimus blends, as we recall, "Ide dart abroad the thunderbolts of

25selimus, Lines 2425-2429.

26Henry Q. Lotspeich, Classical Mythology in the Poetry of E^und Spenser, (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1912). passim. 25 warre,/ And mow their hartlesse squadrons to the ground."27

Locrine blends and adapts: "Dartheth abroad the thunderbolts of warre,/ . . . Mou(wing the massie squadrants of the ground."^® If ^he revisers were not the same person, one of them surely copied and adapted these lines from the other.

In the second major respect, in which the two plays are curiously linked we lack external evidence for any sure control over the relationship. Pew critics have failed to remark upon the general excellence of the comic scenes in

Locrine; indeed, I feel that it is in touches or passages in the comic scenes, if anywhere, that we might entertain the possibility that the W. S. of the title page could have been

William Shakespeare. In an extended examination of the comic element, we are confronted once more with evidence which strongly suggests that comic incident and line in one play was taken over and either developed or condensed in the other. Since the two scenes have occasioned decades of comment, we shall present the lines before surveying the criticism and attempting an assessment. Immediately after the dumb-show opening Act IV, Locrine and his suite come on stage and Locrine says: Now cursed Humber hast thou payd they due. For thy deceits and craftie trecheries. For all they guiles, and damned stratagems. With losse of life, and euerduring shame.29

BTselimus, Lines 415-4l6. 28Eocrine, Lines 804-807. 29liocrine, Lines 1388-1391* 26

The author and/or reviser seems to forget the import of this information, since, later, at Line I571 Humber enters alone and tells us in endless bombast that he is starving.

Humber completes this speech with the following lines strongly marked by the figure of antistrophe or epiphora, and symploce: My bowels crie, Humber giue us some meate. But wretched Humber can give you no meate. These foule accursed groues affoord no meat. This fruitles soyle, this ground brings forth no meat. The gods, hard harted gods, yeeld me no meat. Then how can Humber giue you any meat? Enter Strumbo with a pitchforke, and a scotch- cap, saying;

How do you maisters, how do you? how haue you scaped hanging this long time? yfaith I haue scapt many a scouring this yeare, but I thanke God I haue past them all with a good couragio, couragio, & my wife & I are in great loue and charitie now, I thank my manhood & my strength, for I wil tell you maisters, upon a certain day at night I came home, to say the verie truth, with my stomacke full of wine, and ran up into the chamber where my wife soberly sate rocking my little babie, leaning her back against the bed, singing lullabie. Now when she saw me come with my nose, formost, thinking that I bin drunk, as I was indeed, snatcht up a fagot stock in her hand, and came furiously marching towards me with a bigge face, as though shee would haue eaten me at a bit; thundering out these words unto me. Thou drunken knaue where hast thou bin so long? I shall teach thee how to benight mee an other time; and so shee began to play knaues trumps. Now although I trembled fearing she would set her ten commandements in my face, ran within her, and taking her lustily by the midle, I carried her valiantly to the bed, and flinging her upon it, flung my selfe upon her, and there I delighted her so with the sport I made, that euer after she wold call me sweet husband, and so banisht brawling for euer; and to see the good will of the wench, she bought with her portion a yard of land, and by that I am now become one of the richest men in our parish. Well masters whats a clocke, it is now 27

breakfast time, you shall see what meat I haue here for my breakfast. Let_Mm sit downe and pull out his vittailes.30

Humber apparently does not see Strumbo; he seems to

go on with his earlier speech beginning with lines which vary the earlier closing lines according to the rhetorical figure, pysma, combined once more with symploce:

Was euer land so fruitlesse as this land? Was euer groue so gracelesse as this groue? Was euer soyle so barrein as this soyle?

Strumbo hearing his voice shall start up and put meat in his pocket, seeking to hide himself.

[Humber now asks Jove to send him food, apparently sees Strumbo and concludes:] 0 Jupiter hast thou sent Mercury In clownish shape to minister scsne foode? Some meate, some meate, some meate. Strum. 0 alasse sir, ye are deceived, I am not Mercury, I am Strumbo. Hum. Giue me som meat vilain, giue me som meat. Or gainst this rock, lie dash thy cursed braines. And rent thy bowels with my bloodie hands. Giue me some meat villains, giue me some meat.

Strum. By the faith of my bodie good fellow, I had rather giue an whole oxe then thatüiou shuldst serue roe in that sort. Dash out my braines? 0 horrible, terrible. I think I have a quarry of stones in my pocket. Let him make as though hee would giue him some, and as he putteth out his hand, enter the ghoast of Albanact, and strike him on

^^ocrine, Lines 159O-I63O. 28

the hand, and so Strumbo runnes out, Humber following him. Exit.

Alba. Loe here the gift of fell ambition, ghost. Of usurpation and of trecherle. Loe here the harmes that wait upon all those That do Intrude themselues In others lands. Which are not under their dominion.31

At the close of Scene xlx In the Malone Society

Reprint of Selimus, Abraham the Jew, at the Instigation of

Selimus, has Just finished poisoning Bajazet, the father of Selimus, Aga, the old Bajazet's faithful counselor and him­ self. They all die on stage. Scene xx reads:

Enter Bulllthrumble, the shepheard running In hast, and laughing to himselfe.

Bulll. Ha, ha, ha, married quoth you? Marry and Bulllthrumble were to begin the world agalne, I would set a tap abroach, and not H u e In dally feare of the breach of my wlues ten-commandements. H e tell you what, I thought my selfe as proper a fellow at wasters, as any In all our village, and yet when my wife begins to plale clubbes trumpe with me, I am falne to sing: What hap had I to marry a shrew. For she hath gluen me many a blow. And how to please her alas I do not know. Prom morne toaien her toong ne'r lies. Sometime she laughs, sometime she cries: And I can scarce keep her talents fro my eles. When tram abroad I do come In, Sir knaue she cries, where haue you bln? Thus please, or displease, she lales It on my skin. Kien do I crouch, then do I kneele. And wish my cap were furr'd with steele.

3^Locrlne, Lines 1631-1679. 29

To bear the blows that my poore head doth feele. But our sir John beshrew thy hart. For thou hast loynd us we cannot part. And 1 poore foole, must euer beare the smart.

lie tell you what, this morning while I was making me readie, she came with a holly wand, and so blest my shoulders that I was faine to runne through a whole Alphabet of faces: now at the last seeing she was so cramuk with me, I began to sweare all the crisse crosse row ouer, beginning at great A, litle a, til I cam to w, x, y . And snatching up my sheephooke, & my bottle and my bag, like a desperate fellow ranne away, and here now lie sit downe and eate my meate. While he is eating. Enter Corcut and his P^e, disguised like mourners.3=

Corcut now tells us in a speech of thirty-two lines unmarked by any scheme of sentences that he is fleeing from

the murderous intent of his younger brother, Selimus, who has

sent Hall's sons to capture him. Corcut had hoped to escape to Rhodes, but Bostangi Bassa (Pasha), son-in-law to Selimus, has kept such close guard upon the seacoasts that escape is impossible. Corcut concludes with these lines: These two days haue we kept us in the caue. Eating such hearbes as the ground did affoord: And now through hunger are we both constrain'd Like fearefull snakes to creep out step by step. And see if we may get us any food. And in good time, see yonder sits a man. Spreading a hungry dinner on the grasse.

Bulllthrumble spies them, and puts up his meate.

Bull. These are some felonians, that seeke to rob me, well, lie make my selfe a good deale valianter

32selimus, Lines 1877-1909* 30

then I am indeed, and if they will needes creep into kindred with me, ile betake me to my old occupation, and runne away.

Corcut. Haile groome.

Bull. Good Lord sir, you are deceiued, my names master Bullithrumble: this is some cousoning ooni- catching crosbiter, that would faine perswade me he knowes me, and so under a tence of famili- aritie and acquaintance, uncle me of victuals.

Corcut. Then Bullithrumble, if that be thy name:

Bull. My name sir o Lord yes, and if you wil not be- leeue me, I wil bring my godfathers and god­ mothers, and they shal swear it upon the font-stone, and upon the church booke too, where it is written. Masse, I thinke he be some Justice of peace, ad quorum, and omnium populorum, how he famines me: a Christian, yes marrie am I sir, yes verely and do beleeue: and it please youile goe forwaM in my catéchisme.

Corcut. Then Bullithrumble, by that blessed Christ And by the tombe where he was buried. By soueraigne hope which thou conceiu'st in him. Inborn dead, as euerliuing thou adorest. Bull. 0 Lord helpe me, I shall be torne in peeces with diuels and goblins. Corcut. By all the ioyes thou hop’st to haue in heauen, Giue some meate to poore hunger-starued men.

Bulli. Oh, these are as a man should say beggars : Now will I be as stately to them as if I were Maister Pigwiggen our constable: well sirs come before me, tell me if I should entertain you, would you not steale? Page. If we did meane so sir, we would not make your worship acquainted with it. Bulli. A good well nutrimented lad: well if you will keepe ray sheepe truly and honestly, keeping your hands from lying and slandering, and your tongues from picking and stealing, you shall be maister Bullithrumbles seruitures.

Corcut. With all our hearts. 31

Bulli. than ooMt on moA fellov m , «• will lunia # he#### #h##k, #m# # 4i#h of trip##, #md # #o#i#ti# of puBBi###, & to fiolBi # oooiotl# of puBBlago, BIB you ##rk# thtt «#11 us#B m#t#ph#rT Bmothop voulB h#u# ##1B, # ompmny of puBBiag#! if you B«#l with ## Ion# sir#, Z •hull ##k# you OS oloquoat os our poroon him- E w u m t Oorout, oaB #%llithru#lhlo3) %. Kooppol sad Profossor ftihhorB Both strossoB th# rolotionship of thoso sooas# o# iaBiootia# oloor proof that th# author of Bolimua horrouoB from th# mor# fully-«ork#B out oomio sootioB of Loorla#. Profossor BubharB says# Bofor# sooia# Bs#pp#l*s artislo % hsB arrisoB at th# sam# ooasluaiom, maialy on th# grouaB that ths oomio oharastsr la Bolimms appaars only at this on# plaoo, «hsrsas in loorla# Struhho is a oomio oharastsr «ho appaars all larough th# aarliar parts of th# play. It is almost iapossibl# to ooasoirs that th# author of B#«#lop#B ths oharaotor Btruhbo from ths hints ü«sa in this soon# of ths author of Bslians. but it is parfostly aatural to iaforifor that ths s u m r of Balijsu# sopioB a part of on#I of th# oomio ssaaasssaa# of 3hat sttitoB his Bramatio purpos#,Ss Profossor BalBuin WaawoU stbjoots this ooatoation to sharp aaB oritioal sorutisy, Za spit# of ths fast that BubbarB's oontoatioa has boon aoooptsB by Oualiffo, T. V. BalBuia aaB othar sohelars, Z think Profossor Masuoll sooros som# hsavy hits in aslda# us to rosorv# juB###at ooaooraia# ths proof of oarlior authorship of Loorla# by virtu# of ths oondo sosnss, Profossor Maxwall points out that th# us# of th# ton mails on th# hamB of a shr#«ish woman hsB suoh a long history in th# sixtaonth oaatury,

1936-1987. S^HUhbarB, g£« sit., p. SB. 32

that nothing could be determined as to priority of writing

simply from its appearance in the two p l a y s . 35 He makes the further strong point that:

Although the author of Selimus and Knolles in his The General Historié of the "Rirks follow different sources, all the early accounts "tell how Corcut fled in fear, hid himself in a cave, lived on meagre diet until, compelled by hunger, he issued forth and was betraued to his enemies." Although Humber in Locrine declares "Long haue I liued in this desart cave. With eating hawes and miserable rootes," (lines 1724-25) there was in none of the many accounts preceding the play any warrant for Humber's prolonged and miserable flight. It would have been a remarkable coincidence indeed if the author of Selimus. when his plot required he introduce Corcut in fearful flight, tortured by hunger, forced to hide in a cave and to seek food from a shepherd, should have at hand a play only recently written in which Humber, in defiance of all earlier stories about him, appears in miserable flight, tortured by hunger and forced to hide in a cave and seek food from a countryman in a play, withal, in which he would find many other lines he might appropriate. On the basis of the comic scenes alone, it would appear to be much "more reasonable" to assume that the author of Selimus, following the suggestion of his source, wrote the scene in which Corcut and his servant beg food frcxn the shepherd, and that the author of the comic additions to Locrine imitated that scene, even though to do so entailed prolonging Humber's life in contradiction to all the earlier accounts.36

Although the foregoing analysis seems to me most persuasive, I should wish to carry forth a more extended comparison from this point of departure. In Selimus.

35Maxwell, o£. cit., p. 59* 3^Maxwell, o£. cit., pp. 60-61. 33

Bullitliruinble Introduces the phrase about his wife's command­ ments and "talents" twice. In each instance it is used in

the context of a complete figure. On the first instance, we recall that his point is that if he had the ordering of

creation, he would break open a cask of liquor and not live in fear of breaking one of his wife's orders. The pun lies of course in the metaphor of the orders or commandments blending with his wife's means of enforcing them, having the figure ten in common to carry the association of divinity, and of thunder on Mt. Sinai. I agree with Professor Maxwell that probably a further punning association is to be sought in the sense of assault. "(Webster 3a. 'The Lord had made a breach upon Uzza, 1 Chron. xiii, 1 1 ')."37 ^n any event, in his first use of the figure, Bullithrumble gives it a well-considered development. Now, Strumbo in Locrine has a quite different purpose in mind; he seeks merely to set a background for a bawdy anecdote and may well have found the phrase alone sufficient for his purpose. %is, of course by itself, might indeed suggest the priority of Locrine, the hint given by the phrase in Strumbo's passage and the development of the figure in the later author. Again, exactly the same sort of analysis might be urged in the next phrase the two scenes have in common. Strumbo, we recall, tells us that his wife after greeting him with a shrewish round, "began

37naxwell, op. cit., p. 59* 34

to play knaves trumps." Bulllthrumble In Selimus uses the figure with a more obvious punning association "clubbes

trumpes" and develops the figure with that more careful sense

of appropriateness to character and context that. In my opinion, seems to mark off the work of the reviser of Selimna

(or author) from comparable passages In Locrine. Wasters was a widespread and popular card game of the time, and so

Bulllthrumble says: "Ile tell you m. thought my selfe as proper a fellow at wasters, as any In all our village, and yet when my wife begins to plale clubbes trumpe with me, I am falne to sing:"38

Bulllthrumble now gives forth with a song closely allied In form to the Elizabethan Jig. Unfortunately,

Baskervlll, In his fine study of the subject, does not notice this passage. Neither does he give the text of a Jig that suggests Identity or relationship; It Is hoped that further search of sources might possibly turn up the original of this song. There would appear to be a large body of songs and Jigs on the scolding wife's theme. ®ie wife's line "Sir knave she cried, where have you bln?" Is not only characteristic of an extant ballad, (The Pepys Collection contains a very coarse specimen of the domestic brawl In "A Dialogue Between

A Baker and his Wife" (IV, 147). The wife opens the attack

38sellmus, Lines 1882-1884. 35

with "Where have you been, you drunken Dop?"39jbut may have provided the Loorlne-author with the variant euid punning

"knaves trumpes." We recall however that in Strumbo's passage,

a close variant of this line is given; "TBiou drunken knave where hast thou bin so long?"^® Bullithrumble, in the preceding two lines of the ballad-song has echoed again the scolding

wife's fingers and commandments, this time as talents: Sometimes she laughs, sometime she cried: . And I can scare keep her talents from my eies.^i

Now we must accept one of two possibilities: (l) the song in

the middle of Bullithrumble's passage is original with the author, or, as is more likely (2 ) the ballad was current, possibly as part of a Jig, and the Selimus author-reviser

fashioned a good part of Bullithrumble's introductory lines as a setting for the song, rather than as hints from Strumbo ' s phrases in Locrine. After all, the central point of Strumbo's lines, as far as the immediate comedy is concerned, lies in the bawdy passage with his wife; the comic highpoint of the Bullithrumble passage is clearly the song. I suppose one determined to show at every point the prior authorship of

Locrine might argue that the Selimus reviser-author, reading

the lines of Strumbo in this passage, recalled to mind a popular Jig-ballad and, after shaping his figures more fully.

39charles BaskertJ.ll, % e Elizabett^ Jig and Related Song Drama (Chicago: Uie University of Chicago Press, 1929), p. 172. 40Locrine, Lines I6l3-l6l4. ^^Selimus. Lines I889-I89O. 36 with greater puns, worked in the song as a means of dressing out the scene. I confess this does not strike me as a likely procedure. In any case. It would seem to pose a difficulty, given an uncritical view of the text, should we be determined to see one hand In both revisions, or at least In all the linked scenes. Finally, Strumbo's anecdote seems to have little point as regards his action In the play;' With some exceptions, this lack of point marks all of his comic appearances in Locrine. Bulllthrumble's lines dovetail perfectly with his dramatic situation In confronting Corcut. He has tired of his wife's beatings and he has run away.

T. W. Baldwin has given us an extraordinarily Illuminating gloss that points the relationship of the main lines of Bulllthrumble to the rest of this scene. In Selimus, Bulllthrumble, the clown, has been asked his name, the first question In the Little Catechism. % l s sets him off on godfathers and godmothers, who according to the next question and answer had given him that name, leading to his obliging offer, "and It please you lie goe forward In my catéchisme." He asks his Interlocutors, "If I should entertains you, would you not steale?" and decides they shall be his "seruitures," If they will keep his sheep truly and honestly, "keeping your hands from lying and slandering, and your tongues from , picking and stealing," 611 this Is according to the Little Catechism of 1549, where after the echoed preliminaries the catechumen recognizes under his duty to his neighbor, "To bee time and Just In al my dealing . . . To kepe my handes from picking and stealing, and my tongue from elulll speaking, llylng and slaundrlng . . . Not to couet nor desire other mennes goodes. But learne and laboure truely to ^eate my owne llulng, and to doe my duetle In that state of life; unto which It shall please Gtod to cal me." Kie Intermixed tongues and hands of Selimus are then reversed In Mucedorus, where the clown. 37

Mouse, who has Just been "entertained" as a servant, tells what he can do; "I can keepe ray tongue from picking and stealing, and ray handes from lying and slaundering." It would appear that the clown parts generally are highly synthetic, with the comedians themselves likely dictating the materials."42

Fascinating as the implications of such a passage might be for a more extended survey of the problems of the anonymous play, we must here restrict our comment to the vexed relationship between Selimus and Locrine. A passage in Selimus, Line 1959 and following, would seem to indicate that here as in other places we are dealing with a revised play or a badly printed copy. Surely, in some version,

Corcut had followed up on his original question to

Bullithrumble "if that be thy name" with some such query as

"Art thou, then, a Christian?" because following his response to Corcut's first implied query, Bullithrumble indulges in what is a clear aside: "Masse, I thinke he be some Justice of the peace, ad quorum, and omnium populorum, how he famines me," Bullithrumble continues "a Christian, yes marrie am I sir, yes verely and do believe: and it please you ile goe forward in my catéchisme." Now the Selimus-author has the noble philosopher-son Corcut say Then Bullithrumble, by that blessed Christ And by the tombe where he was buried. By soueraigne hope which thou conceiust in him. Whom dead, as euerliuing thou adorest.

42Baldwin, o£. cit., pp. 243-244. 38

Bulll. 0 Lord helpe me, I shall be torne In peeces with diuels and goblins.

By all the ioyes thou hop’st to haue in heaven. Glue some meate to poore hunger-starued men.43

I think close attention ought to be paid to this passage, not only because its author has managed to dove-tail the comic action of Bullithrumble with the tragic action of Corcut, but also because here we find in the early 1590’s, that blending of two modes of language, lofty and low, tragic and comic at a level of imaginative power so that each mode is subtly affected by the emotional qualities and associations of the other. I should maintain that the author of this pas­ sage points forward to the great tragic style of the mature

Elizabethan theater.

One final note concerning dramatic style might here be pertinent. Bullithrumble emerges here as a remarkably unified comic character; his biases sustain themselves and in the short compass of these few lines, practically his only appearance in the play, he manages at the end to draw all the verbal and imaginative traits of his character together in a fine self-portrait. He remarks as they leave the scene, that his term a "societie of puddings" was a "well used metaphor."

Another would haue said, a company of puddings: if you dwel with me long sirs, I shall make you as eloquent as our parson himselfe."^^ Now of course the very thing that sets off

^3selimus, Lines 1962-1969. 44selimus, Lines 1981-1985* 39

Bulllthrumble verbally from Strumbo is the ability of the

former clown to seize the implications of a metaphor; he has by a happy analysis of his own turn, characterized his overall

cast of mind. In the light of the commandments, the talents,

the Little Catéchisme and Corcut's pathos-filled plea,

Bullithrumble's promise to make them as eloquent as our Parson himselfe carries more overtones than simply a shot at the proverbial fondness of many of the clergy for virtuoso rhetoric; here again, the comic thrust is woven into a sus­ tained and broad field of reference. Koeppel's and Hubbard's

Judgment that Bullithrumble is a weak copy of Strumbo would appear to have some standard other than dramatic effectiveness in mind. Baldwin's final Judgment, after his most illuminating comment on part of the scene, that "It would appear that the clown parts generally are highly synthetic, with the comedians themselves likely dictating the materials,"^5 remains, for me, inscrutable. Would he imply that in these lines from Selimus we have essentially a memorial reconstruction or actor's gag? There is finally one last, tantalizing echo in Bullithrumble's lines which, to my knowledge, has never been noted by any previous student of the play. In his first speech to Corcut who has addressed him: "Haile groome.", Bullithrumble answers him directly: "Good Lord sir, you are deceived, my names master Bullithrumble:" "Rien continuing in an obvious aside,

45saldwin, o^. cit., p . 244. 40

he says "this is some cousoning conicatching crosbiter, that would faine perswade me he knowes me, and so under a tence of

familiaritie and acquaintance, uncle me of victuals. Since Selimus has long been assigned by many critics to

Robert Greene, one supposes at once that the coneycatching

pamphlets are involved here. They may very well be, but in

Henry Chettle's famous pamphlet of 1592, a year in the center of the possible dates for the final writing of our two plays,

we find the character of the bawd complaining to Tarlton—

who symbolizes the drama in the tract— that players "open

our crosse-biting, our coneycatching, our trainee, our traps,

our gins, our snares, our subtilties;" Perhaps there is an

echo, in Chettle's pamphlet^ of Selimus; certainly, the pamphlet polemics of Greene in these years had given these

terms wide currency. We shall also wish to keep slight but possible relationships such as this in mind when we try to reconstruct the bearings if any that the organization and casting of the London companies, especially the Queenes Men, might have had on the present forms of the plays. These, in the present state of our knowledge, are far more obscure and baffling than is the relationship of the plays to bor­ rowings from Spenser, but it will not be useful to explore them even in a limited form, until we have tried to survey more

^^Selimus, Lines 1950-1952. ^^Henry Chettle, Kind Heart's Dreame, ed. G. B. Harrison (London: John Lane, Bodley Head, 1923). 41 pressing problems concerning the possible authorship of Locrine itself.

I hope I have established a fairly strong possibility that the author of Locrine is not the author of Selimus, at least in the period under discussion. Author here as every­ where in this connection means original writer. If this is the case— and I shall continue on this assumption--who might I the author of Locrine, at least in its printed form, be? Kyd,

Marlowe, Lodge, Peele, and Greene have all had their strong supporters. Even a cursory survey of the field shows Robert Greene as by all odds the strongest contender and he calls for our major concern. Before we can undertake this examination, however, we must deal with one of the most famous cruxes in Elizabethan dramatic authorship. Incongrously enough, it rests wholly upon external evidence, and we are lacking so much as a wisp of other material, external or internal, which could establish any control over the matters that have been in such great dispute. On Thursday, January 8 , 1925, the following letter was addressed to the Editor, The Times Literary Supplement, London.

Sir - In his "Bibliographical Account" (I. 119) J. P. Collier affirmed that a copy of the 1595 edition of Locrine was extant which contained on the title-page a manuscript note in the handwriting of Sir George Buck assigning the play to Charles Tilney. Whereas several scholars have from time to time been willing to accept this assignment, either out of confidence in Collier or in consequence of an examination of the quarto in 42 question (cf. "Simpson's Shakespeare's Allusion Books." p. xivii.j W. C. Hazlitt'F‘T»lay-Colleot6r »s Manual, " p. 131, "Handbook", vide lÿlneyj Pleay's "Shakespeare Manual," p.286), it has been more customary to pro­ nounce Collier's assignment "unauthenticated" (cf. e.g.. Sir Sidney Lee in D.N.B., under Edmund Tilney; Tucker Brooke's "Shakespeare Apocrypha," p. xviii.); and very recently such serious students of Elizabethan drama as Mr. E. K. Chambers ("Eliz. Drama," IV. 27) and Mr. J. M. Robertson ("Introd. to the Study of the Shakespeare Canon," p. 198) have unhesitatingly pronounced Collier's "find another example of his inability to play the game honestly.

It happens, however, that the copy of Locrine with the manuscript note on its title-page actually exists and is now in the library of Mr. J. L. Clawson, of Buffalo, New York. In his recent catalogue of the library Mr, Seymour De Ricci reproduces (p. 271) the title page in question, and remarks (p. 270) that the "early seventeenth century hand, signed G.B. and partly cut away by the binder's knife," shows the closest similitude" to the autographs of Sir George Buck in the Cottonian manuscript. Mr. De Ricci deciphers the note thus, remarking that several of the words are doubtful;-

"Char. Tilney wrote (a) Tragedy on(?) this mattro (which) hee named Estrild (which) I think is this. It was b(roke ?) by his death. A (?) wis (er ?) fellow (?) hath published (it) I made dumb shewes for it when (?) I it saw (?) G.B."

As sir George Buck succeeded Edmund Tilney in 1608 as Licenser of Plays; and was related to the Tllneys, the note, if genuine, would, to use the expression of Mr. Robertson, be "weighty". % er e seems to be no reason to doubt its authenti­ city; hence the note is doubly weighty as an illustration of how a bit of external evidence can utterly demolish the interesting theories of those who lean too heavily upon so-called internal evidence in their efforts to untangle the mysteries of Elizabethan dramatic authorship. I am very truly yours, Thornton S. Graves Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S.A. 43

In 1931# the redoubtable W. W. Greg published his report on this whole matter. He developed extremely cogent proof for the authenticity of Hue's manuscript note. He demonstrated the near Impossibility of Collier's having forged both this and the manuscript note on George-a? Greene. Finally, Greg offered his own reading: Char. Tilney wrote [a] Tragedy of this mattr [wch] hee named Estrild: [& woh] j think Is this. It was l[ost ?] by his death, & now [?] s[ome] fellow hath published [it.] J made dube shewes for It. w®^ J yet have. G.B[.]48

In 1933, Dr. S. A. Tannenbaum violently attacked Greg's findings; Tannenbaum resolutely upheld the Collier forgery theory.49 The following year, 1934, Professor

R. C. Bald published his restudy of the whole matter.

Professor Bald was the leading authority In the world on the handwriting of Sir George Hue, having worked for years on the voluminous manuscript of Hue's commentary. With massive exhaustiveness. Bald came down on the side of Greg. The manuscript notes were undoubtedly genuine. One Is forced to the conclusion that practically all the features of the two Inscriptions which seem to Dr. Tannenbaum to prove that they are forgeries are not evidences of spuriousness at all but actually help to prove that they are genuine. If this Is so, the result cannot but be to cast

48w. W. Greg, "Three Manuscript Notes by Sir George Hue," Library, XII, pp. 307-321. 49s. A. Tannenbaum, Shakesperlan Scraps and Other Elizabethan Fragments (New York: Columbia University Press, 1933), pp. Ib-4I7 44

grave doubts on the validity of the assumptions on which these studies of Dr. Tannenbaum's are based.50

I do not see how, faced with such evidence and such assessment, one can avoid holding that the present play,

Locrine. Is a reworking of an older play by Charles Tilney. In this case, the terminus ad ouem for Tilney’s play must be 20, Sept. 1586. On this date, Charles Tilney, first cousin to Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels, and near kinsman of Queen Elizabeth, was hanged and quartered for high treason.51

That his near relative. Sir George Buc, successor to Sir Edmund In 1607 as Master of the Revels, wrote some "dumb shewes" for It, presumably not the ones now attached to Locrine, Is also full of Interest. Sir George In later years lost his mind and was Insane at the time of his death. His estate by his own will passed to his brother, a Roman Catholic Benedictine priest, who had long been In exile on the continent as a recusant.52 All published evidence would strongly suggest that both Sir Edmund and Sir George were staunch conforming

Anglicans. Both of them, however, were keenly Interested In historical studies and devoted apparently a large portion of

50r. C. Bald, "The Locrine and George-a-Greene Title- page Inscriptions," Library, XV, pp. 295-305. 51The Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee (London: Oxford University Press, 1949-50) XIX, p. 879. 52ihe substance of this Information comes from an address by Professor Mark Eccles of the University of Wisconsin delivered to the Modern Language Association annual meeting In 1958. 45

their time to such study. Sir George Buc's Commentary is reputed to be an extensive work and his History of the Life

and Reign of Richard III has attracted favorable notice from

Professor Bald. Charles Tilney, the original author of Locrine, was executed for his part in an alleged Catholic conspiracy. In his last published volume, T. W. Baldwin has

one of his one of his characteristically baffling, yet

informative, notes. In our favorite diversion of interpreting various plays as allegories of current events at home and abroad we have almost consistently ignored the existence of Edmund Tilney, whose duty it was to regulate such matters and whose reaction in such a case as the old play of Sir Thomas More is well known. If his life collection on the historical backgrounds of his time (in a folio volume be­ longing to the Ernest Ingold collection in the University of Illinois Library) ever become generally available, they ought to demonstrate to the most obtruse that if such possible interpreta­ tions were unsuspected by Tilney, they would certainly be unsuspected by his contemporaries. And if they had been suspected by Tilney, his contemporaries would never have had a chance to suspect them.53 I should suppose Mr. Baldwin would be the principal

source of information in accounting for the fact that such information has not become generally available. Yet I must record it as the most curious fact that I know about the study of Tddor-Stewart drama that a scholarly edition with notes and commentary on the relations of the historical thought of the Masters of the Revels to the drama and life

^^Baldwin, o£. cit., p. 465. 46

of their times has never been done. Of course, we are not

primarily concerned, as Mr. Baldwin would Imply, with assess­

ments of English history that had managed to escape Tilney's

notice, or that covertly oppose his readings of history. We

might, one should think, assume that he would not be overly- zealous In suppressing views which agreed with his. The

difficulty Is that we don't know what these views were. We shall have to consider. In spite of Mr. Baldwin, some of the

Implications of this state of affairs when we come to a more detailed consideration of the play as a whole, later In this study.

We may now return to our survey, not of possible original authors of Locrine, but of the candidates for the

second hand. We must confess, at this point, that we have no means of proving that such a second hand was not responsi­ ble for almost all of the play In Its present form, the 1595 quarto. No other known work of Charles Tilney survives, either dramatic oa> non-dramatlc. We should then have to rely on Impressionistic assessment of Internal features that would point to fashions In vogue prior to 1586 and not likely to be repeated In the period 1590-1595. While we may offer an Impression here and there, one must say from the out­ set that this Is extremely hazardous. Nothing Is more clear than that the reviser of Locrine was an attentive reader and

"borrower" from Spenser's Complaints, 1591. No style Is more pervasive In the Complaints than an archaizing one; and so. 47

even should we find passages that strongly suggest 158O-1585, we have no Immediate warrant for thinking they might not be

deliberate archaizing imitations. We must always remember,

however, that our "author" has before him a play composed probably in the years I58O-I586.

The most compelling reason for examining the possibili­ ty that Robert Greene is the "second hand" in Locrine grows out of a network of borrowings from Greene's known work, in particular, his prose romances. IWo passages in the play clearly adapt and echo two passages from songs in Greene's

novels. As far as I am aware, no previous study of Locrine nor of Greene has called attention to these rather obvious facts. In itself of course, such adaptations and the echos prove nothing. Doralicia's song from Greene's pastoral romance, Arbasto, appeared in the first quarto of this work in 1584. Doron's "Eclogue Joynd with Carmelas," the source of the second passage, appeared in the second quarto of Menaphon of 1589. Collins says that he was unable to procure a copy of the first quarto, if indeed there is one extant.5%

Both passages were thus easily available for any reviser as well as Greene, himself, to use.55

In Menaphon, the rustic lover's plot is carried on by Doron and Carmela. Greene introduces the passage with

5^obert Greene, The Plays and Poems, ed. J. Churton Collins (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1905), II, P. 385.

55-Ehomas Nash, Works, ed. R. B. McKerrow and P. P. Wilson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1958), III, p. 300. 48 which we are concerned near the close of the romance. I give the passage with some fullness, since here as elsewhere we are concerned not only with exact echoes but with processes of adaptation.

Where leaning these passionate Lovers in this Catastrophe, againe to Doron the homely blunt Shephearde; who hauing been long enamoured of Carmela, much good wooing past betwixte them, and yet little speeding; at last, both of them met hard by the Promontorie of Arcadie, . . . At last Doron manfully begun thus. Carmela by my troth God morrow, tis as daintie to see you abroad, as to eate a messe of sweete milke in July: you are proude such a house dove of late, or rather so good a Huswife, that no man may see you under a couple of Capons; . . . and with that turning his backe, he smiled in his sleeue to see howe kindely hee had giuen her the bobbe: which Carmela seeing, she thought to be euen with him thus. Indeede Doron you saye well, it is long since wee met, . . . but we haue tyed up the great Dogge, and when you cone you shall haue greene rushes you are such a stranger; . . . And with that Carmela was 30 full stomackt that she wept. Doron to shewe himself a naturall young man, gaue her a few kinde kisses to comfort her, and sware that she was the woman he loued best in the whole worlde, and for proofs quoth he, thou shalt heare what I will praise: and you quoth she, what I will performs. And so taking hand in hand, they kindly sate them downs, and began to discourse their loues in these Eclogues. Dorons Eclogue ioynd with Carmelas Sit down Carmela heres a cubb for kings, Slowes blacks as ieat, or like my Christmasshooes, Sweete Sidar which my leathren bottle brings : Sit down Carmela let me kisse they toes.56

56Robert Greene, The Life and Complete Works, ed. A. E. Grosart (The Huth Library; L o n d o n ! 1881-1883)> VI, pp. 136-137. 49

For an additional eleven stanzas, Doron and Carmela give us their rustic parody of the pastoral eclogue. At the close of Act I, Scene II, in Locrine, we discover Strumbo, his servant, Trompart, and Mistresse Dorothy, During most of this scene, Strumbo has been parodying the euphuistic love epistle. As a result of his efforts, Mistresse Dorothy has come in with

Trompart. At the conclusion of Strumbo*s poem, she says: Truly, M[aister] Strumbo, you speake too learnedly for mee to understand the drift of your mind, and therefore tell your tale in plaine termes, and leaue off your darke ridles.

Strum. Alasse, mistresse Dorothie, this is my lucke, that when I most would, I cannot be understood; so that my great learning is an inconuenience unto me. But to speake in plaine terms, I loue you mistresse Dorothie, if you like to accept me into your familiaritie.

Dor. If this be all, I am content. Strum. Salst thou so, sweet wench, turning to the people, let me lick thy toes. Farwell, mistresse. Strum. If any of you be in loue, prouide ye a capcase full of new coined wordes, and then shall you soone haue the succado de labres, and something else.57

Within the last three lines we have two separate echoes and adaptations of Menaphon. "Let me kisse thy toes" has become Strumbo's 'Let me lick thy toes' ", and Strumbo's last Spanish tag comes from the following passage in Menaphon, again with a parallel coarsening of the sense on Strumbo's

5?Locrine, Lines 395-411. 50 part. Olympia has refused the love of Pleusldlppis, a knight in great favor with her father, and her father has come now to reprove her:

. . . peeuish girle, I aduise thee on my displeasure, either reconcile they selfe betimes, and reforme thy unreuerent tearmes, or I will disclaime the loue of a Father, and deale by thee no more as a daughter, Olympia who alreadie had sufficiently bitten on the bridle, took these words more unkindly than all her former bitternesse, which she disgested but sowerly; neuertheless making necessities the present times best pollicie, shee humbled her selfe as shee might with modestie, and desired the best interpretation of what was past: Pleusidippus whose courteous inclination coulde not withstand this submission, in sign of reconcilement gaue her a stoccado des labiés: yet was he not so reconciled, but he kept on his purpose of going to Arcadie;58 . , .

Greene has long had a reputation as a great borrower not only of other men's lines but of his own. The question is, nevertheless, is this Greene borrowing from himself, or a writer closely read in Greene's work, adapting, possibly parodying, Greene's parody? We are simply unable to give a judgment. We turn now, however, to another striking borrowing; again, one that has not to my knowledge been considered by any of the scholars canvassing the connections of Greene with

Locrine. Ihe first quarto of Greene's Arbasto appeared in 1584, with succeeding editions in I617 and 1626. Churton Collins reprints Doralicia's Song which I give below. In tyme we see that siluer drops The craggy stones make soft:

^ÔRobert Greene, Manaphon, ed. by G. B. Harrison (Oxford: Bodley Head Press, 1927), P. 8I. 51

The slowest snalle In tyme we see. Doth creepe and clime aloft. With feeble puffe the tallest pine In tract of time doth fall: The hardest hart In time doth yeeld To Venus luring call.59

In spite of the printed form, we recognize at once

In these lines of 1584, the darling measure of the third quarter of the sixteenth century, the old fourteeners, poulter's measure. If we take the form of Locrine as having

In Its present state, a terminus a quo of 1591, we should certainly expect Greene to substitute another measure for his lines. We do not know of course that It Is Greene that Is making the substitution. I would stress, however, that the shift In meter would In no way tell against Greene himself adapting his earlier lines. Act II, Scene I opens with Humber, Hubba, Estrlld, Segar, and their soldiers on stage. Humber, the Scythian King, speaks: At length the snalle doth clime the highest tops. Ascending up the stately castle walls; At length the water with continual drops. Doth penetrate the hardest marble stone; At length we are arrived In Albion.GO

Humber borrows no more from Dorallcla, but rounds off the passage with echoes of Tamburlalne. Dramatically and poetically, Humber's opening speech Is absurd, but we are not for the moment concerned with this. In any case.

59oreene, Plays and Poems, ap. cit., p. 237. 60Locrlne, Lines 459-463. 52

such an aesthetic objection might not constitute a barrier to

Greene's authorship.

Let us turn our attention now, however, upon one of

the most extraordinary borrowings and adaptations In the drama of the period. Again It Involves Robert Greene, and again, to the best of my knowledge, this relationship has neither been noted nor studied. In 1907, for the Shakespeare Classics Series,

Mr. P. G. Thomas edited Greene's Fandosto or The Triumphs of

Time. At the beginning of his Introduction he says:

Kie popularity of Fandosto or Dorastug and Fawnla may be gauged from the fact that the British Mhiseum alone contains ten editions of the novel, dated before the end of the eighteenth century. Of these the edltlo prlnceps of 1588 Is a unique copy, and forms the basis of the present modernized edition.61

It Is this edition which the reviser of Locrine must have used, since the second edition did not appear until 16O7 . About a third of the way through the novel. In the typical style of the "Greek Romance," a shipwreck took place and a young Infant In a boat was washed to shore. The Importance of the following pages for a crucial scene In Locrine, a scene which from another point of view we have previously discussed. Is so great that I must give the Greene Incident

In full.

^^Robert Greene, Fandosto, ed. by F. G. Thomas (Shakespeare Classics Series; London: 1907)^ P* Ix. 53

It fortuned a poor mercenary shepherd that dwelled In Sicilia, who got his living by other men's flocks, missed one of his sheep, and, thinking it had strayed into the covert that was hard by, sought very diligently to find that which he could not see, fearing either that the wolves or eagles had undone him (for he was so poor as a sheep was half his substance), wandered down toward the sea cliffs to see if perchance the sheep was browsing on the sea ivy, whereon they greatly do feed; but not finding her there, as he was ready to return to his flock he heard a child cry, but knowing there was no house near, he thought he had mistaken the sound and that it was the bleating of his sheep. Wherefore, looking more narrowly, as he cast his eye to the sea he spied a little boat, from whence, as he attentively listened, he might hear the cry to c

and secretly as he could, went by a by-way to his house, lest any of his neighbours should perceive his carriage. As soon as he was got home, entering In at the door, the child began to czy, which his wife hearing, and seeing her husband with a young babe In his arms, began to be somewhat jealous, yet marvelling that her husband should be so wanton abroad slth he was so quiet ,at home: but as women are naturally given to believe the worst, so his wife, thinking It was some bastard, began to crow against her goodman, and taking up a cudgel (for the most master went breech- less) swore solemnly that she would make clubs trumps If he brought any bastard brat within her doors. The goodman, seeing his wife In her majesty with her mace In her hand, thought It was time to bow for fear of blows, and desired her to be quiet, for there was none such matter; but If she could hold her peace they were made for ever: and with that he told her the whole matter, how he had found the child In a little boat, without any succour, wrapped In that costly mantle, and having that rich chain about the neck. But at last, when he shewed her the purse full of gold, she began to simper something sweetly, and, taking her husband about the neck kissed him after her homely fashion, saying that she hoped God had seen their want and now meant to relieve their poverty, and, seeing they could get no children, had sent them this little babe to be their heir. "Take heed. In any case," quoth the shepherd, "that you be secret, and blab It not out when you meet with your gossips, for. If you do, we are like not only to lose the gold and jewels, but our other goods and lives." "Tush," quoth his wife, "profit Is a good hatch before the door: fear not, I have other things to talk of than this; but I pray you let us lay up the money surely and the jewels, lest by any mishap It be spied." After that they had set all things In order, the shepherd went to his sheep with a merry note, and the good wife learned to sing lullaby at home with her young babe, wrapping It In a homely blanket Instead of a rich mantle; nourishing It so cleanly and carefully as It began to be a jolly girl. In so much that they began both of them to be very fond of It, seeing as It waxed In age so It Increased In beauty. The shepherd every night at his coming home would sing and dance It on his knee and prattle, that In short time It began to speak and call him Dad and her Mam: at last when It grew to ripe years that It was about seven years old, the shepherd left keeping of other men's sheep, and with the money he found In the purse he bought him the lease of a pretty farm, and got a 55

small flock of sheep, which, when Fawnla (for so they named the child) came to the age of ten years, he set her to keep, and she with such diligence performed her charge as the sheep prospered marvellously under her hand.oS

Now there can be little doubt that this episode forms the point of departure for Strumbo's witty turn upon it in

the final act of Locrine. The problem is to decide whether

this is Greene himself giving his old romance incident a

comic version for the play or whether it is not another author, who is echoing and adapting Greene, with overtones of parody and mockery.

To begin with, we note the "couragio, couragio" among the opening words of Strumbo's speech. Now Greene was addicted to Spanish tags. We have Just seen one example in the Menaphon; this tag is echoed and given a coarse turn by Strumbo early in the play. A more extended survey of Greene's known borrowings from himself would be of great help in resolving this question. On the other hand, if Strumbo wished to alert the cognoscenti, either among the audience or among his readers, certainly the Spanish tags would be one way of signalling Robert Greene. The order of the echoes and borrowings in Strumbo are of course quite different from that of the Fandosto episode; even so, there are all there. Strumbo "upon a certain day at night came home, . . . , with my stomacke

62ibid., pp. 33-37. 56

full of wine." Porrus, "as soon as he was home, entering in

at the door, the child began to cry, which his wife hearing,

and seeing her husband should be so wanton abroad . . .

thinking it was some bastard." Strumbo's wife had earlier

been occupied in the same way as later on the wife of Porrus

was to be. Mistresse Strumbo "soberly sate rocking my little

babie, leaning her back against the bed, singing lullabie." The good wife of Porrus "learned to sing lullaby at home with her young babe." The wife of Porrus "began to crow against

her goodman, and taking up a cudgel (for the most master went breechless) swore solemnly that she would make clubs trumps if he brought any bastard brat within her doors." Strumbo's wife "... snatcht up a fagot stick in her hand, and came furiously marching towards me with a big face . . . thundering out these words . . . and so she began to play knaves trumps. Porrus, "the goodman, thought it was time to bow for fear of blows, and desired her to be quiet . . . But at last^when he shewed her the purse full of gold, she began to simper some­ thing sweetly, and, taking her husband about the neck kissed him after her homely fashion, ..." We recall rather vividly the rabelaisian turn by which Strumbo brought his wife round. While it may very well be the case that Greene in

Pandosto and the reviser in Locrine both draw upon a common ballad or jig, it would seem to pass the bounds of coinci­ dence that in a play containing clear and demonstrable 57

borrowings and adaptations from Greene, the Strumbo scene is not recalling the episode in Pandosto. There are however

two curious points that need to be kept in mind. In Selimus,

Bullithrumble echoes the Pandosto "clubs trumps," not the

Locrine "knaves trumps." And curiously Bullithrumble, like Porrus, is a shepherd; "and snatching up my sheephook, & my bottle and my bag, like a desperate fellow ranne away." Since no feature of Bullithrumble's episode, other than those discussed above, seem to echo or adapt any part of Greene's or

Locrine's passages or treatment, we might conjecture that in Selimus we have its reviser drawing upon a ballad or a jig which had earlier, prior to I588, been drawn upon by Greene for a phrase or two in Pandosto. In any case, there seems to be no end to the curious and baffling relationships that emerge in these plays. CHAPTER III

LOCRINE: CONJECTURES AND INFERENCES

PROM QUARTO TO MANUSCRIPT

In seeking to resolve the vexed questions of the relationship between the Quarto of Locrine and the Quarto of

Selimus, it is of fundamental importance that we determine so far as we may the nature of the text that lay immediately behind the printed versions. As we have seen, there exists independent evidence to support the belief that in each case a version of the play existed older than the Quartos of 1594 and 1595. While we cannot be certain that these were not printed versions, no evidence either in the Stationer's Register or in a fragment of a surviving copy exists which would support this. The import of the title page of Selimus calls for a more extended discussion at a later point.

In setting forth a critical analysis of the printed quarto texts as a basis for reconstructing the kind of copy which the printer had to hand, we enter the tangled thickets of the "new bibliography." The achievements of A. W. Pollard,

W. W. Greg, J. Dover Wilson, R. B. McKerrow, and, more recently, Leo Kirsohbaum and Predson Bowers have brought about such a revolutionary change in our way of reading a first printed version of a Elizabethan or Jacobean play 58 59

that all previous studies of the drama of this period seem In varying ways Inadequate, no matter how brilliant may be

Incidental analysis either of a textual, historical, or

aesthetic nature. It seems difficult to believe that printed

quartos and folios which had been subjected to the scrutiny

of a Malone, a Johnson, a Dyce (we pass over Grosart or

Bullen), could be made to yield up so much additional Information as to constitute In many cases a radically new

concept of the text Itself. A present difficulty Is, however,

that the new bibliography has developed Its expertise to such

a point that It Is In danger of losing any Intelligible

rationale. This Is already the case with the disagreement

between Pollard and Kirsohbaum on the good and bad quartos

as determined by their relationship to the Stationers'

Registers.! Die ambiguity sometimes attendant upon the use

of "fair" copy and "prompt copy" vividly Illustrates this

point.2 Be that as It may, however, I shall use In general the terminology of Pollard and Greg, and unless I specifically

state otherwise I shall give to the bibliographical terms which I use, the meanings customarily attached to them by Pollard and Greg. There Is little doubt, however, that Leo

Kirsohbaum has shown that Pollard completely falls to

^Leo Kirsohbaum, Shakespeare and the Stationers, (Columbus: Ihe Ohio State University Press. 1955), passim. 2w. W. Greg, The Editorial Problem In Shakespeare (2d ed.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), P. 122. 60

distinguish "pirate” copy from "surreptitious" c o p y . 3 And

finally, the major difficulty of the "new bibliography" lies

in the fact that we have as yet no synthesis of fifty years

of brilliant monographs and extended studies— no synthesis,

that is, of the import of these studies on the Elizabethan

drama as a whole. E. K. Chambers, a brilliant bibliographer

himself, has, of course, given us a monumental survey in his Elizabethan Stage, but, as yet, no attempt has been made to

bring together thematic, historical and bibliographical studies to some overall resolution of major problems in the Elizabethan drama. The most extended survey of the text of Locrine

known to me in English is that given by Baldwin Maxwell in his Studies in the Shakespeare Apocrypha, to which I have so often referred. All of Mr. Maixwell's comments are penetrating

and I shall attempt to notice each in its turn. Building on his work, one needs to go on to a systematic critical analysis, not only of Locrine, but of such a text as Selimus so closely associated with it. Beyond this, we need an exhaustive analysis of the quartos of %omas Creede printed in or near the middle years of the 1590's. Given the judicious critical abilities displayed by Professor Maxwell, one wishes only that he had given us a more thorough and perhaps more conclusive study. Professor Maxwell observes: There are, as has been said, strong reasons for thinking that our present text of Locrine

^ Kirsohbaum, 0£« cit., passim. 61

represents a revision. The descriptive title given on the title-page, as It Is Identical to that which appears at the head of the first page of text, may well have been the title In the manuscript from which the printer worked. The full title reads; "The Lamentable Tragedle of Locrine, the eldest sonne of King Brutus, discoursing the warres of the Brltalnes. and Hunnes, with their discomfiture: the [Brltalnes] ylctorle with their Accidents, ^ d the death of Albanact." This title Is repetitive and misleading and, despite Its length, quite In­ adequate, making no reference to the events of the last two acts, which In the play, as In all earlier versions of the Locrine story, are recognized as the really eventful happen­ ings of Locrine's reign: his love for Estrlld, whom he secretly kept for seven years before daring to discard Ouendollne and to crown queen; and Ouendollne's revenge, with the resulting deaths of Locrine, Estrlld, and their daughter Sabren. The latest event In the play referred to In the title Is the de­ feat of the Huns, which takes place In Act III, while the death of Albanact, given sur­ prising emphasis In the title, occurs well before the end of Act II. That so Inapt and Inadequate a descriptive title could have been prepared by the author of the play him­ self can be credible only If It were his original Intention, perhaps soon abandoned, to present the story In two separate plays, the first part to end with the defeat of the Huns and the second part to deal with the love of Locrine and Estrlld and Ouendollne's revenge upon them. There appearing at dif­ ferent times In the play two ghosts demanding revenge upon different persons renders each ghost less effective. Were the story pre­ sented In two plays, the ghost of Albanact could have sought and secured his revenge upon Humber In Part I, leaving Part II to the ghost of Corlneus. But In the play that has come down there seems hardly sufficient material from which to build two plays. Many stage directions are omitted, several times no method Is sug­ gested for removing corpses from the stage, possibly some passages are printed out of place, but no essential step In the story 62

seems lacking; the only reported action is the death of Corlneus. Certainly there are Insufficient grounds for assuming that our text of Locrine represents two plays which have been telescoped Into one. Unless, how­ ever, the author was at times exceptionally confused and prone to forgetfulness, the text must have suffered from a careless or Indif­ ferent redactor. There are contradictions and confusions which cannot be explained either by the printer's lack of skill or by the Illegibility of the papers from which he worked.^

I have given Professor Maxwell's comments on this

point In extenso In order that we might have both a point of departure and an Independent assessment of the opening

problems. However, when we examine the title page of the

Malone Society Reprint and the title at the beginning of the play In the same reprint, we discover that they are not In

fact Identical. On the title page we find the first four words quoted accurately by Professor Maxwell set In an

Elizabethan type called Great Primer. This type Is again used on the same page for LONDON which appears at the bottom

Immediately above Printed by Thomas Creede./ 1595. With this exception and that of FINIS at the bottom of the final page of the Malone Society Reprint, all other type In the quarto appears as roman with Interesting variants of Italic.

Now let us look more closely at our two titles: I shall describe first the type on the title page Itself.

^Maxwell, cit., pp. 39-^0. 63

The Lamentable Tragedle of Great Primer Locrine, Italic the eldest sonne of King Roman Brutus, Italic discoursing the warres of the Roman Brltalnes, Italic and Roman Hunnes, Italic with their discomfiture: Roman The Italic Brltalnes Roman vlctorle with their Accidents, and the death of Italic Albanact. Roman No lesse pleasant then profitable. Italic Newly set foorth, ouerseene and corrected. By Roman w.s. Italic New let us look closely at the title given on the first page (A 3) of the play.

The lamentable Tragedle Great Primer of Roman Locrine, Italic the eldest sonne of King Roman Brutus, Italic discoursing the warres of the Roman Brltalnes Italic and Roman Hunnes, Italic with their discomfiture, the Italic (Note: here diver­ gences begin.) Brltalnes Roman victory Italic (Note vlctorle above) with their accidents, and the death of Roman (All Italic above) Albanact. Italic (Roman above.) The first Act. Scene 1. Italic We recall the stringent comments of Professor

Maxwell on the misleading nature of this title, and his 64

Justifiable complaints about the competence of the author if

he had a hand in it. We may be able however to offer a

fairly plausible conjecture which would seek to meet several of these difficulties if we attend carefully to certain

bibliographical inferences which, while not certain, are at least possible. In the case of stage directions in printed

quartos, J. Dover Wilson and W. W. Greg have gone far to establish an ingenious conjecture regarding the presence of

two forms of type, italic and roman, in a printed play. Usually these are found separately; as I shall develop later,

this does not seem to be the usual practice of Thomas Creede,

our printer. Now the conjecture is as follows: the presence of the two types reflects not simply the whimsy of the printer

but rather the presence of two differing scripts either by the

same hand or by different hands in the manuscript. Habitually,

italic type is held to reflect formal or Italian hand and roman

type to reflect the English or common hand.5 Let us apply it

in part to our present problem. It clearly suggests what common sense would suggest, that a manuscript title page was

set up by someone at the printing house in a combination of Italian and English hand that habitually differed from the use

of these hands on the part of the scribe or amanuensis of the manuscript play copy. We cannot at this point conjecture as

5w. W. Greg, Two Elizabethan Stage Abridgements: % e Battle of Alcazor and Grlando Furioso (TOie Malone Society; 6xford: Oxford Universit^y Press, 1922), pp. 99-100. 65 to what kind of copy this manuscript may have been. Uius, we suppose the compositor set his Italic and roman type In accordance with the script given him by the printer, Creede, who may very well himself have composed the title page. Now we come to grips with Professor Maxwell's objections. Creede, the printer, perhaps not himself the compositor, copied out the title of the play from the title of the manuscript In his possession. He perhaps had not read the play or more likely did not care that the title failed to reflect ac­ curately the present version. He clearly knew this present version was revised and Indicated this by "Newly set foorth, ouerseene and corrected." Now the point Is that the reviser of the Locrine manuscript probably had not the slightest

Idea that the manuscript was soon to be set up for publica­ tion. Indeed, If the major reviser was Robert Greene, he had been dead for at least two years and four months when the play was printed. Yet, If the Company (probably the

Queen’s, as we shall see when we survey this question), had engaged Greene In 1591 or 1592 to revise an old play In their possession, very likely we have here the company prompt-copy prepared by the company scribe from a previous author's fair or foul papers owned by the Queen's Men and made available to Greene as the basis for his revision, which In turn would come back to the Queen's Company heavily marked up, written over. Interlined by Greene him­ self, but not re-copled. Thus, the original title of what 66

may well have been a two-part tragedy would be copied out

from Greene ' s revised copy of the "prompt-copy" of the company

sometime after 1591-2 and before 1595. I do not say that we can prove this to be the case; I do say that It Is congruent with the evidence. Neither the original author nor the

reviser, practically a second author, need be held primarily responsible for the present union of the full descriptive

title and the present form of the play. On the other hand.

It would be completely reasonable for an amanuensis preparing a printing copy from the heavily marked up revision of the original fair copy to write out In full the original title.

If the reviser had not bothered to strike out the original title or to write out a more accurate substitute. The

Important point here Is simply to establish the possibility of two different hands In the manuscript from which the first page of the play was printed. Our extrapolated Infer­ ence to titles from that usually made In stage directions would seem to fit very neatly. Were we to balance this, however, against a survey of the typical printing habits of Thomas Creede during these years, we might have to modify or abandon the analysis above. (Oils matter however. Is linked In a curiously suggestive way with the notation of Sir George Buc, discussed In detail elsewhere In this study.

We recall that Sir W. W. Greg transcribed and expanded the note to read: "Char. Tilney wrte a Tragedy of this matter which hee named Estrlld: & which I think Is this. It was 67

lost by his death. & now some fellow has published It. I

made dumbe shewes for It. Which I yet have. O.B."^ I

should be Inclined to urge that since we have every reason

to believe the Inscription to be genuine, we should try to

move to some understanding of Sir George's statements. It would seem to me that one clear Implication of his remarks,

"& which I think Is this.” would be that In Its present

form he could not be entirely sure of the matter but that the basic framework seemed to allow a reasonable certainty. Now, we do seem to have a difficulty with the title. Since

I have detailed the relationship of Sir George Buc to

Charles Tilney In another part of this study, I shall content myself here only with the briefest comments. Sir George

still has the dumb shewes he made for the play, which would seem to Imply that they were not part of the authorial copy obtained by the company or person who came Into possession of Tilney's original manuscript. Since we already have some reason to believe that the original form of this play was a two part Tragedy, the second part may well have borne some such sub-title as "Estrlld" or "the lamentable complaints of Estrlld." Since It Is this part above all that has been most completely transformed In the revision for reasons which are In other connections most Interesting to speculate

^Greg, "Three Manuscript Notes . . . ", o£. cit., p. 314. 68 upon. It would be only natural that Buc, in reading through

Locrine. should be not absolutely certain that he was dealing with the same play. Incidentally, we have perhaps in Buc's notation an interesting hint of a specially obscure matter, the provenance of copy of plays either to a company or to a publisher. Here, Buc tells us that Tilney's manuscript was lost by his death. Is the implication here that Tilney's papers were seized by the government prior to his execution for high treason? If so, it is interesting to conjecture how such a manuscript might have come into the hands of the

Queen's players. None of this, admittedly, can be pressed too far, but I have gone into a bibliographical matter of the titles at some length in order to show as graphically as possible what still remains for study even after so acute a student as Professor Maxwell has worked over the material and raised a number of critical points which seemed to admit of no resolution, even one largely of conjectural inference.

A convenient means of setting forth a survey of the text as a means of ascertaining the probable copy from which the printer worked is to give first a running account of the Act and Scene markings; second, a running list of stage directions with commentary; and last, any peculiarities of the text that seem to point strongly to a certain kind of copy. The most extensive study of Act Division in the drama of this age is to be found in Wilfred T. Jewkes, 69

Act Division In Elizabethan and Jacobean Plays (Shoe String Press, 1958). This study was carried out under the direction of Professor Peter Alexander of Glasgow, and Professors Mark

Eccles and Madeleine Doran at the University of Wisconsin, where Indeed the first part served as a doctoral disserta­ tion. The study contains much of value; some limitations will, however, I believe become more apparent as wider use

Is made of the material. Professor Jewkes provides a con­ venient point of departure In his summary statement: There are four possible ways In which a manu­ script, which we will suppose originally un­ divided by the author, might have acquired division before being printed. The division might have been superimposed by a prompter or stage adapter, by a scribe making a transcript, by an editor, or by the printer himself. In the same way, of course, a play originally divided could lose the marks of division through any of these four agencies.7

I should wish to consider the possibilities In reverse order, since most assuredly the last "hands" directly responsible for the printed quartos are those of the printer and his compositors. We have to deal with

Thomas Creede, and, of course. If It should develop that

Creede had certain clearly defined conventions In the printing of plays In this decade then It would be most foolish to attempt subtle Inferences from such markings as to the probable state of the manuscript copy. There Is,

7w. T. Jewkes, Act Division In Elizabethan and Jacobean Plays 1583-1616 (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String IFrëssTnEgçBTTpTlâT 70

of coursej the much controverted question of Creeds's reputation and standing as a printer. Denigrated in greater or lesser part by Plomer, Pollard, and Greg, he has lately had the benefit of rehabilitation at the hands of Leo o Kirschbaum. With these matters, we are not, however, at present directly concerned. Our inquiry must seek to ascertain the ordinary appearance of printed quartos of plays in the decade 159O-I6OO that issued from Creeds's press. I draw upon the survey set forth by Mr. Jewkes. On the left side I shall give the name of the play followed by sufficient quotation from Jewkes' study to make the entry intelligible. On the right hand side, I shall list Jewkes' description of the division, if any.

The Pedlar's Prophesy 1595 No Division Alphonsus of Aragon 1599 Divided into Acts

Selimus 1594 No Division James IV 1598 Divided into Acts

How a Man May Choose a Good Wife l602 No Division

If It Be Not Good the Devil Is In It l6l2 No Division

Romeo and Juliet Q1599 None Divided Henry V QI6OO (impossible to tell from Jewkes)

The Merry Wives of Windsor QI602 Divided

Clyomon and Clamydes 1599 No Division

^Kirschbaum, op. cit., pp. 294-296. 71

The Famous Victories of Henry V 1598 No Division The True Tragedy of Richard the TOilrd 1594 No Division A Looking Glass for London and England 1594 No Division The London Prodigal 1605 No Division

Locrlne 1595 Faulty Division (cf. later for Markings Jewkes' full com­ mentary. )

The Weakest Goeth to the Wall 1600 No Division

The Hector of Germany 1615 No Division Cupid's Revenge 1615 Divided The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll 1600 Divided

Jack Drum's Enter­ tainment 1601 Divided

The Maid's Metamorphosis 1600 Divided^

Now nothing could be more clear than that Thomas

Creede exhibited the most marked Indifference to the appearance of his printed quartos either as divided or un­ divided. Surely the most reasonable Inference from all this

Is that Creede followed the markings of the manuscript copy made available to him. Since we are not concerned with an editor In either play, we are able, therefore, to proceed

9jewkes, 0£. cit., pp. 109-299. 72 with some confidence in surveying the Act and Scene markings with a view to allocating them either to a scribe making a manuscript, a prompter or stage adapter, or an author or reviser, or to a combination of any or all of the above.

All act and scene entries in the 1595 Quarto of

Locrine are printed in Italic type. I give a list of the entries in running order: In every case they are centered.

The first Act. Scene 1.; The first Act. Scene 2.; The first Act. Scene 3.; The first Act. Scene Tbe 2. Act. Scene 1.; The 2. Scene.; The 2. Scene.; The 4 Scene.; The 2. Act. Scene 5*; The sixt Act.; The 8 . Act.; the 3. Act Scene 1.; The 2. Scene,; The 3. Scene.; The 4. Scene.; The 5. Scene.; The 4. Act. Scene 1.; The 2. Scene.; The 3. Scene.; The 4. Scene.; The 5* Scene.; The 5.Act. Scene 1.; The 2. Scene.; The 3» Scene.; The 4. Scene.; The 5. Scene.

At the outset, we should remark the fact that all scene and act markings are given in English words and Arabic numerals. We shall consider the significance of this at a later time. We then note that the regular practice at the beginning is to repeat the act prior to every scene. This, however, is abandoned in the second scene of the second act.

We note, then a repetition, very likely a printer's error, of the 2. Scene, followed by The 4 Scene. Again, however, we encounter the opening form. The 2 Act. Scene 5» We now encounter two highly suggestive markings: The sixt Act.; The 8 . Act.; Jewkes comments upon these discrepancies as follows: There is some typographical confusion: Act II, scene 6 is designated "The Sixte Act," and the 73

following scene "The 8 .Act." Whether this mis­ take occurred in the original, or was added later, or was due to the printer, is impossible to determine.10

I should wish to point out that bibliographically there are no Act II Scene 6 's in the quarto. This division reflects either a later seventeenth century marking or that

of R. B. McKerrow in the Malone Society Reprint. Secondly,

it is to beg the question to speak of this as typographical confusion. This may be the case, but this is the very point we are seeking to determine. % e printer may simply be following the exact markings in the manuscript; in such a

case it would be clearly misleading to speak of typographical confusion. The confusion clearly would lodge in the manu­

script. Finally the first of the scenes mentioned above is not designated "The sixte Act" but rather "The sixt Act." The puzzling feature of the erroneous entry lies principally in the fact that the two entries represent two different principles of listing: The sixt being written out and The 8 reflecting the use of Arabic numerals. Now we might easily suppose that in the original manuscript given to the final reviser for his work copy, the numbering of the acts was written out. The first act, the second act, etc. This is, so far as I can determine, a highly unusual form in the first editions of printed quartos. Gammer Gurton's Needle

^^Jewkes, o£. cit., p. 231. 74 does however use this form. The most likely supposition is that the sixt and 8 refer to scenes, since even in a two- part play, the usual practice is to start with a new numbering after the fifth act. Here, however, we encounter the obvious fact that the normal scenes in any act of the 1595 version of Locrine are five; there are curious variants however. The first act has four scenes, and the fifth scene of the fifth act has just under three hundred lines, by far the longest scene in the play. The average scene length is under one hundred lines. In Act III, Scene 5, for example, the stage directions clearly Justify later editors marking this as two scenes— as they do— but, even in the quarto which prints it as one scene, the lines are only one hundred and thirty.

Now, the irregularly marked acts come after the fifth scene of Act II and before a clearly marked "The 3. Act, Scene 1". Since the final hand in the manuscript or printer's shop did not hesitate to leave an enormously long final scene in Act V, it is difficult to imagine why they should wish to meirk up divisions following the 5 Scene in Act II. However, if we postulate the same hand for The sixt Act and the 8 Act, then it is difficult to account for the two systems of Act designation. Since I have never encountered any Elizabethan play marked with the notation. The 8 Act, and I recall none marked as the sixt Act, one is led to infer that the person responsible for this marking had little or no experience either with the playhouse or with 75 the writing of Elizabethan plays. This might point to a compositor in the printing office, but I tend strongly to resist this kind of explanation. Ohat in Act II, Scene 3, the manuscript 3 might have appeared as 2 could easily be an error in printer’s reading, but such a confusion seems to me to be fundamentally different from setting up type for

The sixt Act and Rie 8 Act. Something resembling this must have appeared in the manuscript. At least I know of no evidence that would suggest that Ihomas Creede during this decade had any strong editorial principles in bringing out printed quartos. The evidence would seem to suggest that he followed the markings of the copy from which he worked.

In any case, use of the category, printer’s error, ought to be held to a minimum. If this is not done, then I should think most of the work in bibliographical analysis of the past fifty years would be largely worthless. We must, therefore, examine this irregular act marking in the larger context of stage directions and peculiarities of the play in order to assess more closely its true significance.

This will also be the case in interpreting the two kinds of act and scene markings in the play, the first covering the first acts and its four scenes, the second going from the second act through the fifth. In the first case, the first act is written out in each case, followed by the Scene and the Arabic numeral. In the second instance, the first entry gives the Act and Scene with the Arabic numeral 1, followed 76 after this only by the Scene and the Arabic numeral.

In Its present form the central feature that divides

Locrine Into five parts are, clearly, the five dumb shows.

We know that at least two of the dumb shows reflect the author-reviser of post-1591, because of the source material

In Spenser. This would accord with the Import of Sir George Buc's remarks that he had made "dumbe shows" for Charles

Tllney's play which Sir George still had, but that he only thought this quarto, Locrine, was Tllney's Tragedle of

Estrlld. The Inference Is clear that these dumb shows are for the most part not part of Tllneyîs original play, what­ ever the relationship between his play and Locrine may have been. Certain parts of certain of the dumb shows may have been retained from an earlier version of the play, but this

Is Inherently unlikely. I would be more ready to put down the archaic tone of many of the lines to a reviser such as

Greene deliberately seeking to Imitate a style of the pre­ ceding ten or fifteen years. In any case, I shall now list the stage directions for the dumb shows and follow them with Interpretative comment. In each Instance the stage directions combine two parts of the play Into one: (l) the

Entrance of Atey [Ate] as Observer and later Interpreter of the dumb show and (2) the dumb show Itself.

(l) Enter Atey with thunder and lightning all In black, with a burning torch In one hand, and a bloodle swood In the other hand, and presently let there come foorth a Lion running after a Beare or any other beast. 77

then come foorth an Archer who must kill the Lion In a dumbe show, and then depart. Re- maine Atey.; (2) Enter Atey as before, after a lltle lightning and thundrlng, let there come forth this show. Perseus and Andromeda, hand In hand, and Cepheus also with swords and targets. Then let there come out of an other doore, Phlneus, all blacke In armour, with Aethloplans after him, drlulng In Perseus, and haulng taken away Andromeda, let them de­ part. Ate remaining, saying; (3) Enter Ate as before. The dumb show. A Crocadlle sitting on a rluers banke, and a little Snake stinging It. Then let both of them fall Into the water.; (4) Enter Ate as before. Then let their follow Omphale daughter to the king of Lydia, haulng a club In her hand, and a lions sklnne on her back, Hercules following with a dlstaffe. Then let Omphale turn about, and taking off her pantofle, strike Hercules on the head, then let them depart. Ate remaining, saying; (5) Enter Ate as before. Jason leading Créons daughter. Medea following, hath a garland In her hand, and putting It on Créons daughters head, setteth It on fire, and then killing Jason and her, departeth.il

Jewkes has correctly characterized part of these directions,

"stage directions are mostly characteristic of an author, and often permissive, like "Let ther [sic] come foorth a lion running after a beare or any other beast" (l.l)^^ In any case, we have here very strong grounds for thinking that between the author-revlser's final draft and the printed copy, no stage adapter's hand need be seen. If however, the second author had used the company's "fair copy" or prompt-copy, lining out the omitted sections and writing In his own, such copy might have served thereafter

l^Locrlne, Lines (l) 1-8; (2) 431-438; (3) 961-964; (4) 1353-1359; (5) 1771-1774. ^^Jewkes, o£. cit., pp. 230-231. 78 as a prompt copy for the company. We have of course no account of performance of the play, but since the Queen's

Men, the probable owners of the manuscript left London in

1591 and finally dissolved in 1594, such performances as might have taken place would most probably have been in the provinces. Jewkes, in his critical account of the play, goes on to say:

There eœe actually no signs of adaptation connected with performance; what inconsistencies exist agree very well with the theory of later revision. . . . Biere are, in fact many evidences of consistent notation by the author, but none which clearly can be called the prompter's. The natural assumption is that the copy for this play was probably an author's manuscript with revisions, or else a reviser's copy.13

Indeed, this latter is a natural assumption except that it is not accurate to say that there are no traces of adaptation connected with performance. We shall have occasion below to discuss evidence that seems strongly to be connected with

Just such inference, and, therefore, the natural and easy solution to the problem of the copy is thrown once more into doubt. Were it indeed the case that no marking in the quarto gives any evidence of adaptation for stage performance, we might reasonably conclude that the copy we have was prepared for literary purposes, private reading, e.g., possibly at the behest of Creede after he had purchased the original copy from the disbanding Queen's Men. There are several

13lbid. 79

features of the text which would fit well into such a theory.

I do not see, however, in the face of all the textual evidence, how we can adopt such a theory.

In continuing our survey of the stage directions,, we shall note only significant variations from a normal form

which I shall now summarize. All proper names whether of persons or places both within the stage directions and within the text appear in Italic type. All the remaining words of the stage directions appear in roman type and presumably reflect an English hand in the manuscript. The Stage direction for the first Act, Scene 2 is interesting. "Enter Brutus carried in a chaire, Locrine, Camber, Albanact, Corineius,

Guendelin, Assaracus, Debon, Thrasimachus." This calls for nine persons on the stage at the same time. Even if we were to take Guendelin for a boy's part, or, as we shall see later possibly Thrasimachus too, this would still call for seven men and two boys. The importance of this lies in seeing what company in the early 1590's would be likely to have a cast of this make-up if we assume the final form of the play reflects the casting conditions of an actual company. But more of this later. We should note here that "Corineius" is habitually spelled throughout the text of the dialogue as "Corineus" and that the "Guendelin" of this stage direction is elsewhere in the text spelled as "Guendoline."

The abbreviations of the names on the left-hand margins, while not consistent throughout the text, are in every case 80

Intelligible and probably given by the last author-reviser. Beginning immediately after Line 200 we have the first of

several stage directions inserted between the lines of

continuous dialogue. Brutus is speaking and the first stage direction reads; "Brutus taking Guendoline by the hand."

At the end of Line 222, the closing line of a speech of

Guendoline's, we have the stage direction "Brutus turning to Locrine./ Locrine kneeling,", followed by the dialogue line, "Then now my sonne thy part is on the stage." The interesting thing is that there is no listing of Brutus on the left-hand margin. So far as I can determine, this is the only place in the play where such a marking is lacking and this entire stage direction and the absence of Brutus' name on the left margin would argue strongly that we have here the author-reviser's hand, not that of the stage adapter.

Again Lines 227 and Line 245, "Puts the Crowne on his head." and "Turning to Albanact" are incorporated in continuous lines of the text. The stage direction. He dieth. Line

269 calls for the eth form to be noted. Act 1, Scene 3 has the first of the comic scenes, generally — and I think rightly— held to be later insertions. This comic scene calls for three personages, Strumbo, Trompart, and Dorothy to be on stage, and since the scene is immediately preceded by nine people on the stage and immediately followed by eight personages, it would seem that there would be no possibility of doubling and thus that the play in its present form would 81

probably call for a minimum cast of twelve. The stage

directions for the first comic scene are: (Line 310)— Enter Strumbo aboue In a gowne, with Inke and paper In his hand,

saying; Line 34l--Let him write a lltle and then read.;

Line 344— Then write agalne, and after read.; Line 3 6 2 — Trompart entrlng salth; Line 374--(Speaking in his eare.

Exit Trompart; line 379 Enter Dorothle and Trompart.; Line 406— Turning to the people. " There are of course many

points of Interest In the above directions, but Insofar as they point to copy, again the permissive Let and the generally

"literary" form point to authorial origin. Support for

seeing the reviser's foul papers Immediately behind the

Locrine Quarto may be found In Lines 315-316, "when eurle thing as salth Lactantlus In his fourth booke of Consulatatlons

dooth say, goeth asward." The Inference here would be that as salth/dooth say In the same line suggests that the reviser presumably wrote the first, as salth, but later In the sentence

decided to shift to form to dooth say, neglecting to strike

out the superfluous first version. The direction, "Turning to the people," shows, of course, the strong force of the tradi­

tions and conventions of the "popular" theater. There Is no

attempt made to create an Illusion of the "fourth wall." The next Interesting stage directions occur In the Irregularly

marked, "The 2 Scene of Act II." Line 569--Enter Strumbo,

Dorothle, Trompart cobllng shooes and singing; Line 616—

Captalne shewing him presse mony.; Line 639--Strumbo snatching 82

up a staffe.j Line 643— Fight both. These directions, too, point to authorial copy, but we are now in the midst of the highly irregular Act II and several points in this act call

for rather extended notice in connection with our present

inquiry. Critics have long seen in Estrild's lines in Act II, Scene 2 the hand of Robert Greene. A close look at the sur­

rounding passages of Estrild's speech. Lines 484-518, strengthens

the suspicion that, whoever might be the author of her lines,

these lines were inserted into a dialogue that existed in pre­ vious form. Humber and Hubba have been discussing Fortune in terms and imagery reminiscent of Tamburlaine. Hubba concludes one speech by saying

Hubba . . . None must be king but Humber and his sonne. Hum. Courage my sonne, fortune shall fauour us. And yeeld to us the coronet of bay. That decketh none but noble conquerours: But what saith Estrild to these regions? How liketh she the temperature thereof. Are they not pleasant in her gratious eies? Astr. [sic] The plaines my Lord garnisht with Floras welth And thus comforted all to one effect. Do make me thinke these are the happie lies. Most fortunate, if Humber may them winne. Hubba. Madam, where resolution leads the way. And courage followes with imboldened pace. Fortune can neuer use her tyrannie. For valiantnesse is like unto a rocke That standeth in the waues of Ocean, Hum. Kingly résolu'd thou glorie of thy sire.

Surely, Hubba's last speech might well have begun.

Sire, and been in response to the first three lines of Humber's dialogue above. Still, if the Estrild's lines have been inserted. 83

* her final line of dialogue above is smoothly enough drawn

in so that the seams of the patching are not too noticeable.

Lines 322-324 pick up part of a continuous prose speech of Strumbo, "for trust me gentlemen and my verie good

friends, and so foorth;" Line 705 and Line 711 also read, "Wilde fire and pitch, wilde fire and pitch, &." Of course,

no mark sets up more of a bibliographical query than does or the written out forms of the words. We must call

into court here. Sir W. W. Greg and his discussion of this point in his Two Elizabethan Stage Abridgements. Sir Walter is discussing textual matters in the printed quarto of

Orlando Purioso of 1594 and the surviving part of Orlando in the Alleyn Manuscript. Lines 1240 and following of the quarto, with Orlando speaking read, "Paire Polixena, the pride of Illion,/ Peare not Achilles ouer-madding boy,/ Pyrrus shall no, &./ Sounes Orgalio, why sufferest thou this old trot to come so nigh me?" In his Textual Commentary,

Sir Walter offered the following note on the &.

Dyce originally noted: "i.e. I suppose, any nonsence the player chose to utter extempore, but he clearly grew suspicious of the explanation, for in his second edition he merely remarked that this is what it "Sometimes means, in old dramas." "Perhaps Greene wrote more and the Players 'cut it' is Orosart's contribution," Collins asserts without hesitation: "This &c. means that the player could go on extempore," and quotes various instances. Dyoe's revised statement is, of course, perfectly correct, as is proved by the passages cited by Collins; but these are not in pari materia, being all comic prose speeches! one pausing to think would have been struck by the absurdity of Greene's leaving it to an actor to compose 84

one of M s mythological extravanganzas In verse. Moreover, A (the Alleyn Manuscript) shows that he did notMng of the sort; the speech Is broken off, and the &c. must be the compositor's misunderstanding of some symbol used to indicate as much. The importance of the matter lies in the fact that if the editors' explanation were correct Q would almost necessarily represent a transcript from the prompt- copy. 14 [Later, in a foot-note dealing with earlier editorial comments on the same marking, "&c." in the 1594 Quarto, Greg remarks,]"If the explanation of the queer "&c." in Q1242 suggested by editors were correct, we should have little choice but to admit some link of transcription. We happen, however, to know that the "&c" was not in the original at all, and the proposed explanation ic intrinsically absurd.15

In the light of the above, it is obviously foolish to speak with such confidence as does Jewkes that there are no notations "which clearly can be called the prompter's." Particularly is t M s the case when Jewkes gives no indica­ tion that he is aware of, much less has considered, the three instances given above. Still, it must be admitted that even in the context of Greg's analysis, the copy import of the markings is not entirely clear. The markings occur in pari materia to Collin's references, and thus would seem to fall clearly under the rubric of prompter's copy. We need not worry about compositor's error, since in the first instance the text irregularity occurs when the form is written out in words. But it is this last feature that is somewhat troublesome. Would the transcriber and/or the stage-adapter

l^Greg, Two Eliz. Stage Abridgements, op. clt., pp. 236-237. ISlbid., p. 348. 85

have written out "and so foorth" in the first instance, and followed it with the conventional abbreviation for later recurrences? It is entirely possible, but we cannot, of

course, be sure. In any case, the presence of these nota­

tions constitute a formidable bibliographical crux in assessing the state of the copy of Locrine furnished the printer.

In this same section of the play, we have of course the irregularly marked acts or scenes, and in "The 8. Act" we have a most suspicious entry in the stage direction. (a) This is repeated again in Act III the 3. Scene, (b) The two directions are: (a) "Enter Humber, Hubba, Segar, Thrassier, Estrild, and the souldiers." (b) "Enter Humber,

Estrild, Hubba, Trussier, and the souldiers." Now in each instance there are no lines or action of any kind given to the character listed as (a) Thrassier/(b) Trussier.

Occurring as it does, in the part of the play that shows the greatest amount of suspicious and irregular markings, this naming of an entering character that speaks not a line in the entire play raises the strong suspicion of revision and abridgement. ISie entrance, therefore, would reflect the original manuscript of the play. A later revision and abridgement, which we recall received strong inferential support from a consideration of the titles, simply obliterated the character Thrassier/Trussier but forgot to remove him from the entrance stage direction. Here again, though, as 86 elsewhere in this baffling play we encounter a variation that seems to defy reasonable conjecture. What occasions the variant spelling of the name? % e most reasonable

Inference would be that the copy furnished Creede, the printer, was made from a heavily marked up reviser's, perhaps the reviser's foul-papers, or stage-adapter's copy by a scribe with no Interest In anything except transcribing all lines not clearly marked out. The variant may reflect the presence of an earlier hand with such curious personal characteristics that at one point the scribe read Thrassier and at another, Trussier. Although Professor Maxwell has made an extended study of the play and Its textual and bibliographical problems have been studied In extenso for seventy years, the clearest evidence for extensive revision, cutting, and abridgement has not as yet been noticed. Hils occurs precisely where we should expect It, I.e. beginning with the curious 2 Act,

Scene 5. Since this section has so many features of Interest for all phases of our study, I give a full transcript and follow It with a commentary. The 2 Act. Scene 5»

Enter Humber, Hubba, Segar, Trussier, and their souldiers. Hum. Hubba, go take a coronet of our horse Line 770 As many lanciers, and light armed knights As may suffice for such an enterprise. And place them In the groue of Caledon, With these, when as the skirmish doth encrease 87

Retire thou from the sheltiers of the wood. And set upon the weakened Troians backs. For pollicie ioyned with chiualrie Can neuer be put back from victorie.

Exit. Albanact enter and say, clownes with him. Thou base borne Hunne, how durst thou be so bold Line 780 As once to menace warlike Albanact? The great commander of these regions. But thou Shalt buy thy rashnesse with thy death. And rue too late thy ouer bold attempts. For with this sword this instrument of death, Kiat hath bene drenched in my foemens blood, lie separate thy bodie from thy head. And set that coward blood of thine abroach.

Strum. Nay with this staffe great Strumbos instrument. Line 790 lie crack thy cockscome paltry Scithian.

Hum. Nor wreake I of thy threats thou princox boy. Nor do I feare thy foolish insolencie. And but thou better use thy bragging blade, Ttien thou doest rule thy ouerflowing toong, Superbious Brittaine, thou shalt know too soone The force of Humber and his Scithians. Let them fight.

Humber and his souldiers runne in.

Strum. 0 horrible, terrible. Line 799 The sixt Act. Sound the alarme. Enter Humber and his souldiers.

Hum. How brauely this yoong Brittain Albanact Darteth abroad the thunderbolts of warre. Beating downe millions with his furious moode; 88

And in his glorie triumphs ouer all, Mouing the massie squadrants of the ground; Heape hills on hills, to scale the starrie ske. When Briareus armed with an hundreth hands Ploong forth an hundreth mountains at great loue. And when the monstrous giant Monichus Hurld mount Olimpus at great Mars his targe. And shot huge caedars at Mineruas shield; How doth he ouerlooke with hautie front My fleeting hostes, and lifts his loftie face Against us all that now do feare his force. Like as we see the wrathfull sea from farre In a great mountaine heapt with hideous noise With thousand billowes beat against the ships. And tosse them in the waues like tennis balls.

Sound the alarme. Humb. Ay me, I feare my Hubba is surprisde. Sound again; Enter Albanact.

Alba. Follow me, souldiers, follow Albanact; Pursue the Scithians flying through the field: Let none of them eacape with victorie: That they may know the Brittains force is more Then al the power of the trembling Hunnes.

Thra. Poivard braue souldiers, forward keep the chase. He that takes captiue Humber or his sonne. Shall be rewarded with a crowne of gold.

Sound alarme, then let them fight, Humber giue back, Hubba enter at their backs, and kill Debon, let Strumbo fall downe, Albanact run in, and afterwards enter wounded.

Alba. Iniuious fortune hast thou crost me thus? OSius in the morning of my victories. Thus in the prime of my felicitie To cut me off by such hard ouerthrow; Hadst thou no time thy rancor to declare. But in the spring of all my dignities? Hadst thou no place to spit thy venome out But oh the, person of yoong Albanact? I that ei^e;-While did scare mine enemies. And droue them almost to a shamefull flight, I that ere while full lion-like did fare Amongst the dangers of the thick thronged pikes. Must now depart most lamentably slaine 89

By Humbera trecheries and fortunes splghts; Curst be their charms, damned be her cursed charms Line 850 That doth delude the walward harts of men. Of men that trust unto her fickle wheels. Which neuer leaueth turning upside down. 0 gods, O heauens, allot me but the place Where I may flnde her hateful1 mansion, lie passe the Alpes to watry Meroe, Where flerle Phoebus In his charrlot The wheeles whereof are dect with Emeralds, Cast such a heate, yea such a scorching heate. And spolleth Flora of her checquered grasse. Ile ouerrun the mountaine Caucasus, Where fell Chlmaera In her triple shape Rolleth hot flames from out her monstrous panch. Scaring the beasts with Issue of her gorge, lie passe the frozen Zone where ysle flakes Stopping the passage of the fleeting shlppes Do lie, like mountalnes In the congeald sea. Where If I flnde that hatefull house of hers, lie pull the fickle wheele from out her hands. And tie her selfe In luerlastlng bands: But all In valne I breathe these threatnlngs. The day Is lost, the Hunnes are conquerors, Debon Is slalne, my men are done to death. The currents swift, swlmme violently with blood. And last, 0 that this last night so long last, % selfe with woundes past all recouery. Must leaue my crowne for Humber to possesse.

Strum, Lord haue mercy upon us, masters I think this Is a holle day, euerle man lies sleeping In the fields, but- God knows full sore against their wills.

Thra. Pile noble Albanact and saue thy selfe. The Scithians follow with great celerities. And ther's no way but fight, or speedle death. File noble Albanact and saue thy selfe. Sound the alarme. Alba. Nay let them file that feare to die the death That tremble at the name of fatall mors, Neu'r shall proud Humber boast or brag himselfe That he hath put yoong Albanact to flight. And lease he should triumph at my decay. This sword shall reaue his malster of his life. 90

That oft hath sau'd his maisters doubtfull life: But oh my brethren If you care for me, Reuenge my death upon his traiterons head. Et VOS quels domus ect nlgrantls regia dltls, Qui regitis rigido stlglos moderanlme lucos: Nox caeci reglna poll furlalls Erlnnls Dllgue deaegue omnes Albanum tolllte~~regem Tolllte flumlnels undls rlgldague palude Nunc me fata vocant. hoc condam nectore ferrum.

Thrust himselfe through.

Enter Trompart.

0 what hath he don, his nose bleeds? but oh I smel a foxe, Looke where my malster lies, master, master. Strum. Let me alone I tell thee, for I am dead.

Trum. Yet one, good, good master. Strum. I will not speake, for I am dead I tel thee.

Trum. And Is my master dead? 0 sticks and stones, brickbats and bones, and Is my master dead? Line 910 0 you cockatrices and you bablatrlces, that In the woods dwell: You briers and brambles, you cookes shoppes and shambles, come howle and yell. With howling & Screaking, with walling and weeping, come you to lament. 0 Colliers of Croyden, and rustlcks of Royden, and fishers of Itent. For Strumbo the cobler, the fine mery cobler of Cathnes towne: Line 920 At this same stoure, at this very houre lies dead on the ground. 0 Malster, theeues, theeues, theeues.

Strum. Where be they? cox me tunny, bobekln let me be rising, be gone, we shall be robde by and by. (Exeunt.

The 8 Act.

Enter Humber, Hubba, Segar, Thrassier, Estrlld, and the souldiers. 91

Hum. Thus from the dreadful shocks of furious Mars Thundrlng alarmes, and Iharonuslad drum We are retyred with loyfull victorie. The slaughtered Troians squeltrlng In their blood. Infect the alre with their carcasses, . And are a praie for euerle rauenous bird.i®

After an additional thirty-three lines of no great textual interest distributed among Estrild, Hubba, and Humber the scene closes and a major section of the play comes to an end.

Although Albanact*8 lines 759-764 close Act II,

Scene 4, there is little in them that prepares us directly for the ensuing battle that opens Scene 3* Albanact had merely said, "It greeues melordings that my subjects goods/

Should thus be spoiled by the scithians,/Who as you see with lightfoote forragers/ Depopulate the places where they come,/

But cursed Humber thou shalt rue the day/That ere thou camst unto Cathnesia." I offer only as an impression that Humber's couplet Lines 777-778 concluding his initial speech in

Scene 5 has much more of the flavor of verse from 1575-1585 than it does of 1590-95î "For pollicie ioyned with chiualrie/ Can neuer be put back from victorie." I fear to press such impressions too far since we should clearly expect the re­ vising author to try to pick up something of the earlier verse style in order to make the revisions blend more smoothly.

l^Loorine, Lines 766-935. 92

In addition, there seems to have been, as we have noted before, a vogue of archaizing just in these years. We have every reason, however, to believe that all the clown additions are insertions of the post-1590 period and so we find the next stage direction a revised notation. We should note that Albanact is not listed at the left margin but his identification in the stage direction alone suffices to join to him the succeeding eight lines. The stage directions at

Line 777 start a peculiarly strange passage of the play. Humber and his souldiers are run off the stage presumably by Albanact and Strumbo. Trumpart may be there since the earlier stage direction speaks of the plural, clowns. No direction is given for Albanact, Strumbo, or Trumpart to leave the stage. Yet immediately following the irregulstr entry. The sixt Act, we have "Sound the alarme. Enter

Humber and his souldiers." We now find Humber speaking adapted lines from Spenser's Complaints by means of which we can clearly place this passage as a revision after 1591, as we have shown in another part of this study. Now Humber does not seem to speak lines that have a very close narrative relationship to the immediately preceding lines. Not too much need be made of this by itself, but coming where it does, and being clearly marked by its source material as a revised and inserted passage, there is a strong probability that it replaces an extended development in the older version.

After this bombastic but dramatically inept speech, we have 93

the stage direction, "Sound the alarme," and Humber speaks the puzzling line, "Ay me, I feare my Hubba is surprisde."

Now there is not the slightest indication in the quarto

version of the play of any reason why Hubba should be

surprised. As a matter of fact eleven lines later. Line 833

we have the direction, "Hubba enter at their backs, and kill

Debon." Here again, we may suspect Humber's line to be taken over from a more extended and apt context in an earlier

version. Humber's line is now followed by the direction,

"Sound againe; Enter Albanact." But Albanact calls to his

souldiers to follow him and after five lines, Thrasimachus

unaccountably speaks up. Admittedly this is done smoothly enough if it is an abridgement of a more extensive section

of an earlier play; otherwise, it would seem to mark a surprising degree of ineptness on the part of everyone who had a hand in the text of the play. Still and all, one does not wish to rule out such ineptitude in the drama of these years. But the next stage direction would seem to me to be most typical of considerable condensation of an

earlier play. This is borne out by an examination of

Albanact's words after he has "run in" and afterwards

entered "wounded." Albanact begins one of the long ranting passages in the play. The point is here, however, that he

says he "Must now depart most lamentably slaine/By Humbers

trecheries and fortunes spights;" One naturally supposes

that the only element of deceit as far as the immediate 94

scene is concerned involves the stationing of Hubba's forces

in a Caledonian grove in order that they may at the proper time attack the Troian's rear. If this is the case, it is

rather strange that Albanact never refers to Hubba by name

and indeed outside of "Debon is slaine" that part of the

action is perhaps subsumed only in the apostrophe to "cursed

Fortune's" wheel. But we might by means of not implausible conjecture see something rather different suggested by an

earlier version of the play which probably from inferences

on the two titles have taken five acts to get us through

the death of Albanact. In such a conjecture, Albanact, as is suggested by the lines, defeated Humber's forces. Humber

swore fealty to Albanact and then by means of genuine treachery and the turn of a second battle accomplished Albanact's defeat and wounding. Thrasimachus' lines immediately

following the long passage of Albanact under discussion further support extensive revision at this point. Line 88l reads

"Plie noble Albanact and saue thy selfe." Line 884 reads "Plie noble Albanact and saue thy selfe." It is not difficult to see the suggestion here of an original speech containing

these lines being altered within the manuscript and the repeated line not marked for the printer's omission either by carelessness of the scribe or by the failure of the printer

to read a notation indicating the line was to be left out.

In the second place, a leading motif is developed from the final line in English spoken by Albanact, "Reuenge my death 95

upon his traiterons head." This would seem, taken with the

earlier reference to Humber's treachery and the astonishing

Senecan end meted out to him later in the play, to suggest

an offense of greater import than merely defeating Albanact

in battle by a standard military maneuver. I suggest that all of this is not inconsistent with the conjectural ex­

panded version outlined above. Aesthetic criticism should take note of the extraordinary force of Strumbo's line in this scene. "Lord haue mercy upon us, masters I think this

is a holie day, eurie man lies sleeping in the fields, but

God knowes full sore against their wills. This has the

true Shakespearian magic and shows a fusion of the two styles

in the play that points towards the power of the drama Just then breaking in its greatness upon the London stage. The

comic lines are handled with great effectiveness, to my mind, in this scene. Tucker Brooke's emendation of Trompart's

line "Yet one good, good master" into "Yet one word, good master" is cogent and surely right. I would call further

attention to the likelihood that one line may have been inadvertently omitted from Trompart's rhyming and humorous lament, a fine parody of the Senecan set-piece. The rhyme

scheme of Lines 911-921 suggest that Lines 909-910 may well be the second part of a similar structure with an end syllable

^^Locrine, Lines 878-88O. 96

rhyming with dead. Against this may be urged the fact that Trompart begins this speech with, "And Is my malster dead,"

and there Is no requirement In sense for him to have an ad­ ditional line. My judgment Is, however, that a line Is probably missing. In any case, the comic elements are very well handled here and suggest a playwright of considerable ability, at least In certain lines. The two notes of Tucker

Brooke on this entire matter which we have surveyed are so remarkable as to deserve repetition. On the final scene of Act II, given above he says, "The numbering of scenes In Q

In the last part of this act Is extraordinarily careless." and of Albanact's Byronlc rantlngs about tracking down Fortune, Brooke says, "A striking Illustration of the hold which the Ideas of travel and exploration had on the 1 ft Elizabethan Imagination." There are several points In Albanact's speech to which we must return at another point In the study, but since this discussion does not advance our Insight Into the printer's copy, we shall forbear further analysis at this time. Incidentally, so far as T. Brooke's emendation of

Trompart's good for word bears upon copy-text matters. It would argue that the printer's text was either the reviser's autograph on an earlier manuscript or a close transcription

P. Tucker Brooke, The Sh^espeare Apocrypha (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918), p. 422. 97

of his work since It Is characteristic of authorial psychology in rapid writing.

We do not encounter any features that seem to me to

have special textual import until Lines IO50 and following

in Act III Scene 2. Corineus is speaking, "In Cornwall where

I hold my regiment/ Euen iust tenne thousand valiant men at

armes/ Hath Corineus readie at commaund;/ All these and more, if need shall more require,/ Hath Corrineus readie at command." Here again, while we do not have quite the same kind of repetition as earlier, we may entertain a suspicion of a revision of a text with the repeated phrase. Still, the device of extended repetitio as a rhetorical embellishment had a certain popularity and this may well explain its use here. Line IO88 has another stage direction which again does service to identify the speaker of the following lines, but indeed the whole scene 3 of this Act III presents again strong material for suspicion of revision and here complete rearrangement of rather lengthy passages. At first reading,

Humber's lines appear to follow naturally enough from the close of the preceding Scene 2. In this scene Locrine,

Corineus and their camp have vowed to march "straight to

Albania." (Albany, Scotland). Humber says: Thus are we cone victorious conquerors Unto the flowing currents siluer streamss Which in memoriall of our Victoria, Shall be agnominated by our name. And talked of by our posterltie: For sure I hope before the golden sunne Posteth his horses to faire Thetis plaines. 98

To see the waters turned into blood. And chaunge his blewish hue to rufull red. By reason of the fatall massacre Which shall be made upon the virent p l a i n e s . ^9

Now, I am suspicious of the Joining of the lines "And talked of by our posteritie:/ For sure I hope before

the golden sunne/." But these may indeed reflect a unified

development. It turns out, however, from Humber's next speech that he has a vision of a battle.

Hum. Me thinkes I see both armies in the field. The broken launces clime the cristall skies. Some headlesse lie, some breathlesse on the ground. And euery place is straw'd with carcasses. Behold the grasse hath lost his pleasant greene. The sweetest sight that euer might be seene.'^'^

This is all very well, but we must remember that Humber has Just said that he hopes to see this fatall massacre "before the golden sunne/ Posteth his horses to faire Thetis plaines, The situation becomes even more perplexing 29 lines later when Humber responds to Hubba's brag with: Hum. Right martiall be thy thoughts ray noble sonne. And all thy words sauour of chiualrie. But warlike Segar what strange accidents Makes you to leaue the warding of the campe.

Segar. To armes my Lord, to honourable armes. Take helme and targe In hand the Brlttalnes come. With greater multitude than erst the Greekes Brought to the ports of Phrlglan Tenldos. Hum. But what salth Segar to these accidents? What counsell glues he in extremities?

Seg. Why this my Lord experience teacheth us, % a t resolution Is a sole helpe at need.

SOLocrine, Lines 1093-1098. 99

And this my Lord our honour teacheth us. That we be bold In ueurie enterprise. Then since there is no way but fight or die. Be resolute ray Lord for victorie.

Hum. And resolute Segar I raeane to be. Perhaps some blissfull starre will fauour us. And comfort bring to our perplexed state: Come let us in and fortifie our campe. So to withstand their strong inuasion.

Exeunt. I find this bewildering. There is not a word or phrase to connect Bimbers last lines with the entire train

of thought of the opening part of the scene. It turns out

that he had not had the faintest idea of the presence of the

Brittaines nor of an impending battle with them. Surely, however, in view of the fulfillment of his vision in every particular, one might have expected him to recall it; not at

all. He asks Segar what to do, and with a seeming reluctance, prepares for the enemy's attack. One ought not, I suppose, ever to underestimate the inadequacies of Elizabethan play­ wrights, but the reviser of Locrine, as we saw in the pre­

ceding scene, would seem to be something more than a hopeless, Henslowe hack. This lack of unified dramatic develop seems

to me much easier to account for on the grounds of radical

abridgment and condensation, perhaps a radical abridgement

even of Greene's revision. Here again, our earlier con­

jecture of a two-part play would find some support.

^^Ibid., Lines 1128-1149. 100

The next curious feature of our play bearing upon a possible earlier version has been masterfully analyzed by

Professor Maxwell. One could not do better than to give his discussion in full.

In all the earlier accounts of the story Humber is said to have drowned immediately after the battle with Locrine, some times in an attempt to escape the Britons and at other times in an act of despair. In the play the battle is rather summarily treated. After an alarum is sounded, "Enter Hubba and Segar at one doore, and Corineus at the other (line 1278);" there is a brief exchange of boasts and then Corineus "Strikes them both downe with his club" (line 1294) and presumably goes out, though his exit is unmarked. Humber enters cursing Locrine and his own fate: . . . Here the Ghost of Albanact enters and Humber, after speaking of

. . . the burning furie of that heate That rageth in mine euerlasting soule, (lines 1348-49) runs out, followed by the Ghost's cry "Vindicte, vindicte,"

Had the dramatist followed his sources, Humber would at this point have drowned himself, and his speeches just quoted seem to prepare the way for his doing so. Indeed, one has no doubts that Humber has found such an escape from his suffering when at the opening of the following scene Locrine, reviewing the battle, declares

Now cursed Humber hast thou payd thy due. (line 1388) With losseof life, and euerduring shame, (line 1391)

Later in the scene, after the weeping Estrild is led in, Locrine, at once suffering the pangs of love, declares that If she haue cause to weepe for Humbers death . . . Locrine may well bewaile his proper griefe . . . He being conquerd died a speedie death. And felt not long his lamentable smart, I being conqueror, liue a lingring life . . . I gaue him cause to die a speedie death. He left me cause to wish a speedie death. (lines 1462-71) 101

And as Locrine presses his suit, Estrild asks:

How can he fauor me that slew my spouse? (line I508) . . . Locrine was the causer of his death, (line I510) But he (Humber) was llnckt to me In marriage bond. And would you haue me loue his slaughterer? (lines 1513-14) Although all but the first of these quotations are from that portion of Act IV scene 11, which I have suggested was Inserted by a reviser, they agree both with what we are told In lines 1388-91 and with what Is reported In all earlier accounts of the battle.

But In spite of these confidently uttered and certainly not unexpected statements that Humber has died, he reappears In the next scene In a bit of ccanedy very similar, as has often been noted, to a comic scene In Sellmus (lines 1900ff); Par from having "died a speedie death," he appears not even seriously wounded. Suffering the pangs of hunger, he has found

. . . not a roote, no frute, no beast, no bird. To nourish Humber In this wlldernesse. (lines 1586-87 ) During his complaints the clown Strumbo enters and sitting down, pulls out "his vlttalles." At Humber's threats, Strumbo agrees to share his food, but, as the stage direction Instructs:

Let him make as though hee would glue him some, and as he putteth out his hand, enter the ghoast of Albanact, and strike him on the hand, and so Strumbo runnes out, Humber following him. (lines 1669-7 3 ) The next two scenes render even more remarkable the changes which the play has Introduced Into the story of Humber. In the first of these scenes (IV, Iv) Locrine, In agreement with all the sources, declares that for seven years Corineus has lived "To Locrlnes grlefe, and faire Estrllda's woe,' thus Indicating how much time has elapsed since Humber's overthrow. In the following scene, however, Humber again appears and before "Fling(ing) himself Into the rluer” (line 1756) tells of the misery he has suffered "for feare and hunger," thinking 102

at euery boisterous blast Now Locrine comes, now Humber thou must die- (lines 1729-30 ) in the present text a baselss fear, it would seem, for Locrine never expresses doubts of his earlier conviction that Humber died at the time of the battle. All told, the curses and laments uttered by Humber in the three scenes in which he appears after his defeat amount to 128 lines, lines abounding in repetitious thoughts and phrases. As there are (omitting the dumb shows and their explanations) fewer than 2,000 lines in the entire play, it is obvious that the dramatist lost all sense of time, proportion, and importance in making this addition to his sources, or that I&unber ' s original laments have been first divided and then elaborated— presumably to permit the introduction of the comedy of IV, iii. The latter is, I suspect, the correct explanation. =2

To my mind. Professor Maxwell establishes his argument with impressive cogency. The import of the final comic scenes and likewise the verse form of the Locrine- Estrild scenes are more appropriately discussed in the section treating of source material and of the relations of lines and incidents in Locrine to clearly linked counter­ parts in Sellmus. In any case, such discussion would not throw any direct light on the state of the text. Prom

Humber’s death until the end, the matters of textual interest are few. We must note, however, one more notation that would seem to indicate marking for a performance and is not likely to have been a marking from the final reviser’s hand. As we have seen, stage directions from the reviser’s

^^Maxwell, o£. cit., pp. 47-50. 103

hand are of a literary or descriptive nature, generally per­ missive, usually centered In the pag% and space Is clearly

left between lines of dialogue to insert the directions

appropriate to the lines. Thus even when we encounter In

Act V Scene vl "Sound the alarme," (line 2076) or "Thrust hlmselfe through with his sword." (line 2110) or "Kill her

selfe." (line 2131) we should not be too hasty to use the

Imperative form and the position of the directions on the

right hand side of the page to see here another hand connected with stage performance from that of the author. In every case, these directions are clearly given a full line to themselves, and In the same scene, placed In the same position In the line we have "let her offer to kill her selfe." (line 2153) and "She drdwneth her selfe," (line 2248). These last offer strong Indications of being the product of the final reviser, and, I should so class the first group. However, In lines

2096-2098 we have the following: And now my sword that In so many fights Hast sau'd the life of Brutus and his sonne. End now his life that wlsheth still for death. At the right-hand margin following close upon the ends of the first two lines above and separated from them by a parenthesis, we find (klsse his ( sword.

This notation carries with It a strong suspicion of Insertion after the final reviser had completed his rewriting of the older play. One other stage direction In 104

the play shows a similar form. Line 374 has at the right side of the page:

tell her. (Speaking in his eare.

Again we note that this notation occurs on the same

line as does part of the dialogue. One could argue that it was an afterthought of the reviser's, but on the whole the probability is against this. A much more likely explanation is that this was entered by a stage adapter's hand on the manuscript revised by the final writer, and thus the second author's revision is likely to have been used as a prompt- copy. As we saw in Chapter One, Locrine in its final form bears a close relationship to Selimus in its final form.

How does our reconstruction of the final-reviser's manu­ script relate to a more searching study of Selimus? We must, of course, attempt to characterize the manuscript of Selimus most likely to have served as printer's copy. In turning to Selimus, however, we are able to move somewhat beyond the large amount of conjecture on which we have had to rely in Locrine. Why we are able to do this is the subject of our next chapter. CHAPTER IV

SELIMUS; THE TEXT AND THE LONGLEAT MANUSCRIPT

Although critics have long studied the problems of the relationship of Selimus to Locrine, to the present, we have been unable to get behind the text of Selimus either by external means, as was the case with the Buc notation on Locrine or by means of internal analysis that pointed to any work except Locrine itself. Thus, seventy years of critical probing of the two plays has generated a somewhat circular path. There are some interesting implications of title-page entries and some interesting conjectures about the casting patterns in terms of personnel organization of London com­ panies in 1590-1594. We shall have occasion later on to assess the import of such matters, but until the present, we have had to content ourselves with the evidence of clear relationship between the two plays, yet with the exact nature of this relationship eluding further precision. I should like to present some evidence together with analysis and interpretation which may open up some paths of investigation of import for the study of the anonymous drama in this whole period.^

^This entire chapter was completed in its present form in September, I962. Since then my attention has been drawn to the excellent short study of the very problem I

105 106

All biographies of Sir Walter Raleigh have occasion to describe In considerable detail the Ralelgh-Northumberland

circle. Pew coteries have attracted more detailed and sus­ tained scholarly Interest. One camp of scholars have con­ fidently asserted the Identity of this group with the "School of Night" mentioned by Shakespeare In Love's Labour Lost. Miss Muriel Bradbrook has Investigated this matter at great length In her volume. The School of Night (Cambridge,

England, 1936) and her general thesis has been extended Into the more detailed researches of Miss Prances Yates In A Study of Love's Labours Lost (Cambridge, England, 1936).

Earlier, and along parallel lines, Mr. Arthur Acheson In his

Shakespeare and the Rival Poet and Mr. G. B. Harrison In his edition of Wllloble His Avisa (London, 1926) had drawn at­ tention to possible connections between the Ralelgh-Harrlot-

Roydon-Chapman group and allusions In Shakespeare's play and Shakespeare's circle, particularly, the Earl of Southampton.2

(Cont'd from preceding page) have here considered; this article, "Ralegh's 'Hellish Verses' and the 'Traglcall Ralgne of Sellmus'", by M. Jean Jacquot appeared In the Modern Language Review, XLVIII, 1953.

Since It was clear to me that M. Jacquot brought forth no evidence destructive of my general readings, I allowed my study to stand, and I give a brief assessment of the article at the end of the chapter. ^Muriel Bradbrook, The School of Night (Cambridge: The University Press, 1916): Prances Yates,A Study of Love's Labours Lost (Cambridge: The University Press, 1936); Arthur Acheson, Shakespeare and the Rival Poet (London: J . Lane, 1903)• 107

Pew scholars in our century have devoted so much time to the question of Raleigh's intellectual positions as has

Professor E, A. Strathmann. In 1951, he drew together the research of many years in his book, Sir Walter Ralegh, A Study in Elizabethan skepticism. Professor Strathmann dealt harshly with most of the scholarship named above.

The fundamental difficulty of the "School of Night" theory, of course goes back to Shakespeare's text. Those who propound the theory find an allusion in Loves Labour's Lost and develop to the utmost the topical possi- bilities of that play, with the result that, as in most studies of Elizabethan topical allusions, identifications abound and conflict.3

Earlier in his study, however. Professor Strathmann discussed some surviving manuscript evidence in terms that clearly demonstrate that he was not as aware of their rela­ tionships and implications as one might have thought. In a passage that will lead us straight to Selimus, Professor

Strathmann begins:

But if Ralegh is relatively unimportant in the large perspective of the history of political thought, he is by no means in­ significant as a purveyor of that thought, especially in the seventeenth century. His political writings have been well described as serving the function of a "weather vane".

My concern with these writings is not with their political philosophy in general, but specifically with their ethics and their indebtedness to Machiavelli. "Machiavellianism",

3Eo a. Strathmann, Sir Walter R a l e ^ , A Study in Elizabethan Skepticism (New York; Columbia University Press, 1951), p. 270 . 108

for the Elizabethan a synonym for “atheism," was charged against Ralegh In the libelous days of his trial, and he was credited with the authorship of "certain hellish verses devised by that atheist and traitor Ralegh as It Is said":

Then some sage man among the vulgar, knowing that laws could not In quiet dwell unless they were observed, did first devise The name of God, religion, heaven, and hell, . . . And those religious observations Only bugbears to keep the world In fear.

[Professor Strathmann has a most Important note which I shall give In full later]

Although there Is nothing In Ralegh's acknowledged writings to Justify this ascription, the verses reflect the popular opinion of Machiavellian principles - this one, specifically, that religion^ was devised to keep men In awe of their governors.^

Professor Strathmann, In his note, gives the correct source of these lines which Is the Historical Mss Comm.,

Calendar of the MSS of the Marquis of Bath, II, (1907), 52- 53: He goes on to add, however. The entire poem of fifty-nine lines Is In this Irreligious and seditious vein. This explanation of the origin of religion was. In Elizabethan opinion, one of the most scandalous of the doctrines attributed to Machiavelli; £f. Baines' charge against Marlowe, In C.P. Tucker Brooke, The Life of Marlowe (New York, 1930), p. 98.5

Informed and perceptive as Professor Strathmann's comments are, there are misleading Implications In his remarks, and there Is a general failure to probe deeply Into

^Ibld., pp. 161-162

5lbld., p. 162 109 crucial aspects of this manuscript source. Since the first failure turns upon the second, we must look more closely at this fascinating entry In the Bath papers,

A. L, Rowse In his study. Sir Walter Ralegh and the Throckmortons, published last year, 1962, has brought a wealth of new material to Ralegh studies and to a deeper knowledge of the age by his use of the hitherto unpublished material In the diary of Sir Arthur Throckmorton, Ralegh's brother-in-law. This diary has been preserved at Coughton, the country seat of the head of the Throckmorton family, whose elder line were staunch recusants and remain Roman Catholic to this day. Rowse Is concerned, as was his prede­ cessors, to paint a vivid picture of Raleigh's Intellectual milieu, stressing particularly the characteristics of the entourage of Henry Percy, ninth Duke of Northumberland. In the course of describing the "Wizard Earl" and his "Three

Magi," Warner, Hughes, and Harlot, Rowse says:

What the orthodox thought of these unquiet spirits may be gathered from the effective verses circulated as supposed to have been written by "that Atheist and traitor Ralegh":

He then proceeds to quote twenty-five lines from the fifty-nine lines mentioned In Professor Strathmann's note and appends a note of his own.

H.M.C, Bath Mss. II. 52-53; actually from the anonymous play, Sellmus, 159^.

^A.L. Rowse, Sir Walter Ralegh and the Throckmortons, (London: Macmillan, 1962), pp. 254-255. 110

While Mr. Rowse deserves high marks for his perspi­ cacity in noting the relationship between these lines and

Selimusj the crucial point is that these lines are not from

Selimus but establish the major external link of our present text of Selimus to a work or milieu other than Locrine. Fur­ thermore, this relationship opens up extremely important paths for further investigation.

In 1907, Mrs. S. C, Lomas transcribed for the His­ torical Manuscripts Commission the papers of major historic interest in the library of the Marquess of Bath at Longleat,

Wiltshire. In her introduction to volumes II and III, printed in one volume, Mrs. Lomas outlined the probable provenance of these documents. They are part of the Harley papers brought to Longleat in the eighteenth century when Elizabeth Bentinck married the then Marquess of Bath. Elizabeth Cavendish was the daughter of the Duke of Portland and Margaret Harley, daughter of the last Earl of Oxford. The great Harley, friend of Swift and Pope, had come into possession of a sub­ stantial body of papers belonging to an old county family whose head. Sir William Hicks, had lost his reason. Sir

William, however, was a direct descendant of Michael Hicks, the "chef de cabinet" of Lord Burleigh and of his son. Sir

Robert Cecil, later the Earl of Salisbury. Michael Hicks was the most trusted confidant for many years of these power­ ful figures. Thus according to Mrs. Lomas we are to suppose Ill that In all probability he "collected" the papers from the reigns of Henry VIII and Mary Tudor, but the papers from the reign of Elizabeth probably came directly into his hands. In order more fully to appreciate and to assess the import of one of these papers, we must have the Longleat entry in full.

1603. - "Certaine hellish verses devysed by that Athiest and traitor Rawley as yt is said, viz.": -

When first this circkell round, this building fayre, some god tooke out of this confused masse what god I do not know nor greatly care then every one his owne director was, then war was not nor ritches was not knowne and no man said then this or that ys my owne the plowman with a furrowe did not marke how far his great possessions they id reache the earth knew not the shore nor the sea the barke nor soldiours dared not the battered breach nor trumpets loud tantara then did teache they neided then nothing of whom to stand in awe but after Nunus warlicke Bellus sonne with uncouth armoure did the earth array then first the sacred name of king begann and things that were as common as the day did yeId themselves and lykewise did obey and with a common muttering discontent gave that to tyme which tyme cannot prevent. Then som sage man amonge the vulgarr knowing that lawes could not in quiet dwell unies the(y) were observed did first devyse the name of god, religion, heaven and hell and gaine of paines and faire rewardes to tell paines for theis that did neglecte the lawe rewardes for him that lived in quiet awe whereas in deid they were mere fictions and if they were not yet (I thinke) they were and those religious observationes onely bugberes to keepe the worlde in feare and make them quietly the yoke to bere so that religion of itself a fable was onely found to make that peaceable 112

herein especially comes the foolish names of father mother brother and such lyke. But who soe well his cogitations frames shall onely fynd they were but for to strick into our minds as tever (sic) kind of lyke regard of some for shew, for feare, for shame indeid I must confes they were not bad because they keep the baser sorte in fere but we whose myndes with noble thoughts ar clad whose body doth a rich(er) spirit bere which is not knowne but flyethe everywhere why should we seeke to make that soule a slave to which dame nature such large freedome gave amongst us men there is som difference as affections termeth us be it good or ill as he that doth his father recompence differs from him which doth his father kill and yet I think, think others what they will that paradice when death doth give them rest shall have as good a part even as the best and that is Just nothing for as I suppose in deathes void kingdom r*ules et email night secure of evill (and) secure of foes where nothing doth the wycked soule affright then since in death nothing doth us befall here while I live I will have a fetch at all.

Finis R,W. alias W. Rawley.

Endorsed: - "Verses written by Sir Walter Rawley, 1603." I have instituted inquiries in England in order to ascertain if one may be able to establish the endorsing hand of this paper, the hand that copied the verses and dated them in 1603, One cannot tell from the entry as published. But Mrs.

Lomas, unaware of the connection of these verses with the passage from Selimus, published in 1594, dismisses the lines with these comments: The popular view of Ralegh's religious opinions (although a very mistaken one) is probably expressed by the doggerel verses ascribed to him printed on p. 527*

?H.M.C., Bath Mss., II. X 113

In any case, as I shall now demonstrate, there is no easy way to account for this entry. Were the lines simply copied from Selimus, one could construct a very simple ex­ planation for their appearance in Hicksfe papers. Sir Robert

Cecil had finally trapped Ralegh, not without some help from

Sir Walter himself, in the meshes of the Bye plot, Cecil*s aim was to discredit and ruin Ralegh utterly with King James.

On no score was Ralegh more offensive to James than on that of his reputed "atheism". Willard Wallace in his biography of Raleigh sketches out the matter neatly:

. . . Cecil left nothing to chance. He knew that Raleigh still thought of him as a real friend and was loyal and generous to him in the name of friendship. At some time, therefore, Raleigh might say kind things of him in James*s presence. The very possibility horrified the Secretary - it might be a kiss of death. Hence the future sovereign of England must be warnëd not to take seriously any good words Raleigh might speak of the future sovereign's future minister, Robert Cecil: "Let me therefore presume thus far upon your Majesty's favour, that whatsoever he shall take upon him to say for me, upon any humor of kindness, whereof sometime he will be replete (upon the receipt of private bene­ fit), you will no more believe it (if it come in other shape), be it never so much in my commendation It • • • • One would suppose that Cecil had said Just about everything necessary in order to ruin Raleigh in James's eyes, but the Secretary again took no chances. He had two arrows left in his quiver. Although James had no end of trouble with the Scottish Kirk, he was a Calvinist of narrow persuasion who prided himself on his piety and his knowledge of theology. His later abhorrence of the English Puritans was grounded less upon his disagreement with their doctrine than upon the threat they constituted to the Church of England, one of the pillars of monarchy. But nothing on earth, not even a Puritan, was quite so.dangerous to religion or monarchy as anTatheist"*;. . SfeSr.r pious mind, "atheist" was the most effective smear 114

possible. Deliberately - Cecil was nothing if not deliberate in all his actions - the Secretary fitted one of the arrows to his bow and winged it northward toward Edinburgh: "Would God (he said of Raleigh), I were as free.from offence towards God in seeking, for private affection, to support a person whom most religious men do hold anathema."®

Now all of Cecil's remarks quoted above were made in his highly secret correspondence with King James VI of Scotland in I601 and l602. In 1603, Elizabeth died; James became James I of England, and Cecil's machinations against

Raleigh bore fruit in Sir Walter's arrest and trial for high treason. Now, even were the verses copied out and in Hicks's possession nothing more than lines from Selimus, this would be highly interesting, since it would show how neatly Sir

Robert and his alert secretary, Mr. Hicks, were to have ready to hand a specimen of Raleigh's reputed views. Yet a moment's reflection would serve to make it clear that neither the as­ tute Hicks nor his brilliant master would seriously think of bringing into a treason trial a few lines copied from a printed quarto, probably allowed by the Master of the Revels. They were well aware that they had pitted themselves against one of the most brilliant and dangerous men of the European

Renaissance. In any case, the lines do not come from the printed quarto of Selimus and we must now turn to lines clearly and closely related to the lines attributed to Raleigh.

^Willard Wallace, Sir Walter Ralei^ (Princeton: The University Press, 1959T7'^p7''ï55~ïWT~^ 115

Early In the play called The first part of the

Traglcall ralgne of Sellmus, Empereur of the Turkes, Sellmus,

Slnam Bassa, Otrante, Occhlalle, and the "souldlours" come on

the stage and Sellmus, the protagonist, delivers himself of the longest speech I have encountered In the Elizabethan theatre. Beginning at Line 231 In the Malone Society Reprint,

Sellmus does not end until he has completed one-hundred and fifty lines of soliloquy, exposition, philosophic lecture and related matters. In the midst of this speech, we find a startling passage (lines 305-369), the lines that caused Mr.

Rowse to think that the entry In the Bath Manuscripts were nothing but a copy of these passages. To begin with there are sixty-four lines, not fifty-nine, and as even the most cursory examination will make clear, the lines In Sellmus have appropriated the lines In the Bath manuscripts and fitted them In to the dramatic context of the play. Thus, the

Longleat entry would seem to reflect a version of these lines In Sellmus earlier than the printed quarto of 1594, and we have very weighty external evidence, the ascription of

Michael Hicks, that the lines were by Raleigh. This brings Raleigh closely Into the world of writers and dramatists of the period 1591-1594 and offers precisely what Professor

Strathmann said was not available: contemporary evidence other than Shakespeare's Loves Labour's Lost and the Jesuit

Father Parsons' charge that Raleigh was associated with a 116 group marked by heterodox opinions. The crucial point here is that Hicks must have had access to a manuscript copy of these verses that had an independent relationship to their writer from that of the final manuscript version or published copy of Selimus. In any event, let us now look at the rele­ vant passage in the play. Selimus, earlier in this extra­ ordinary speech, had set forth in most bloody, sophistical terms, the reasons why he had a right to seize the rule from his father, Bajazet, and to thrust aside his brothers' claims to the throne.

But for I see the schoolemen are prepared. To plant gainst me their bookish ordinance, I meane to stand on a sentencious gard; And without any far fetcht circumstance. Quickly unfold mine owne opinion. To arme my heart with irréligion."

Now begins either the insertion or the revision of the lines from the Longleat manuscript.

When first this circled round, this building faire. Some God tooke out of the confused masse, (What God I do not know, nor greatly care) Then euery man of his owne dition was. And euery one his life in peace did passe. Warre was not then, and riches were not knowne. And no man said, this, or this, is mine owne. The plough-man with a furrow did not marke How farre his great possessions did reach; The earth knew not the share, nor seas the barke. The souldiers entred not the battred breach. Nor Trumpets the tantara loud did teach. There needed them no iudge, nor yet no law. Nor any King of whom to stand in awe. But after Ninus, warlike Belus sonne. The earth with unknowne armour did warray,

^Selimus, Lines 299-304. 117

Then first the sacred name of King begunne: And things that were as common as the day. Did then to set possesseurs first obey. Then they establisht lawe^ and holy rites. To maintaine peace, and gouerne bloodle fights. Then some sage man, aboue the vulgar wise. Knowing that lawes could not in quiet dwell, Unlesse they were observed: did first deuise The names of God, religion, heauen and hell. And gan of paines, and faind rewards to tell: Paines for those men which did neglect the law. Rewards, for those that liu'd in quiet awe. Whereas indeed they were meere fictions. And if they were not, Selim thinkes they were: And these religious observations, Onely bug-beares to keepe the world in feare. And make men quietly a yoake to beare. So that religion of it selfe a bable. Was onely found to make us peaceable. Hence in especiall come the foolish names. Of father, mother, brother, and such like: For who so well his cogitation frames. Shall finde they serue but onely for to strike Into our minds a certaine kind of loue. For these names too are but a pollcle. To keepe the quiet of socletie. Indeed I must confesse they are not bad. Because they keepe the baser sort in feare: But we, whose minde in heauenly thoughts is clad. Whose bodie doth a glorious spirit beare. That hath no bounds, but filet euery where. Why should we seeke to make that soule a slaue. To which dame Nature so large freedome gaue. Amongst us men, there is some difference. Of actions tearmed by us good or ill: As he that doth his father recompence. Differs from him that doth his father kill. And yet I thinke, thinke other what they will. That Parricides, when death hath gieun them rest. Shall haue as good a part as the rest. And thats iust nothing, for as I suppose In deaths voyd kingdoms ralgne s et email night: Secure of euill, and secure of foes. Where nothing doth the wicked man affright. No more than him that dies in doing right. Then since in death nothing shall to us fall. Here while I liue, lie haue a snatch at all.10

lOselimus, Lines 305-3&7* 118

We shall return to a detailed consideration of the differences between the two passages. At this point I should

like to quote the remaining lines of this speech of Sellmus

In order to emphasize some further points of Interest. And that can neuer, neuer be attalnd, Unlesse old Bajazet do die the death: For long Inough the gray-beard now hath ralgn’d. And llu'd at ease, while other llu'd uneath. And now Its time he should reslgne his breath. T'were good for him If he were pressed out, T'would bring him rest, and rid him of his gout. Résolu'd to do It, cast to compassé It Without delay or long procrastination: It argueth an unmanured wit. When all Is readie for so strong Inuasion, To draw out time, an unlookt for mutation May soone preuent us If we do delay. Quick speed Is good, where wlsedome leades the way. Occhlall?ll

I should be prepared to argue on stylistic grounds.

Impressionistic to be sure, that, given the clue that lets us look with confidence at the jointure of this speech, we can mark a rather different, and to my judgment. Inferior, poetic line In the passages Immediately preceding and following the lines closely related to the Longleat entry. For example, the adapting or Inserting author can think of no smooth way within the compass of the Invention of the scene to Introduce the Longleat passage, and so he simply has Sellmus announce that he Is going to deliver these "sentences," "I meane to stand on a sentencious gard:," In order to "arme" his "heart

^^Sellmus, Lines 368-382. 119 with irréligion" Selimus excuses the absence of a plausible occasion by telling us that he is not going to bring in "any far fetcht circumstance." I detect a slightly hurried or indifferent playwright and reviser. In any case, it is

surely the easy way out. One does not have a long enough specimen of the insert in order to determine whether or not its author would use the But for construction. The use of for as a subordinate conjunction equivalent to because and following upon coordinate But is however so common in the period, that no distinctive note as to personal style would be likely to emerge from this point. When, on the other hand, we turn to the lines im­ mediately following the Longleat insert, then I think, we see a quite different state of affairs. The lines in Selimus are And that can neuer, neuer be attained, Unlesse old Baiazet do die the death: (Lines 268-269, MSR) The repetition of neuer in the first line, and the emphatic verb form, followed by a cognate object, would seem strongly to point to the need of the author to fill out the line, the pervasive iambic pentameter of the play and of the insert. However, this need seems to me to have overcome the play­ wright's ability to sustain the force of expression of the

Longleat lines, and, I would think argues for the presence of at least two hands in this passage. At least within the 120 admittedly short passage from the Longleat papers, we find no need to rely upon such "padding" in order for the iambic line to have fullness and force.

I offer a detailed comparison of the matching lines of the passages. We shall try to indicate those passages that might easily have been mistaken by Creede, the printer, but correctly copied out by hand in the Longleat papers; but this would, of course, imply that the Longleat copier had direct access to a manuscript copy of Selimus, either the print­ er's manuscript copy, presumably a "fair" copy or possibly the author-reviser's foul papers. I propose to put in parenthesis the notation (L) to indicate that the line or passage is from the Longleat papers, and reserve (MSR) to indicate the standard printing of the 1594 quarto, the Malone Society Reprint. I shall give my evaluation of each compared passage immediately after quoting the passage. When first this circkell round, this building fayre, (L) When first this circled round, this building faire, (MSR)

The most plausible explanation for the difference in texts here would seem to be that the Longleat copier correctly read a manuscript source for circkell while Creede the printer mistook the termination of the noun, circkell, for a past participial ending and supposed the following appositive adjective, round, was, in fact, the noun object. Either reading makes sense, and both readings could be paralleled 121

from the age, but I would strongly urge the Implausibility of the Longleat scribe having before him only the printed text of Selimus and then writing circkell in place of circled.

While it is conceivable that the Longleat copies had correctly read the Selimus-author* s manuscript, while Creede struggled to work out an emendation, I should find it easier to suppose that the Longleat copier had a manuscript source independent from or prior to that of Creede, the printer of the unique 1594 quarto. It might be noted in passing that the Longleat copier has a reading with parallel form for the adjective, both round and fayre being in the appositive position. Al­ though the language had then no such overwhelming objection as does current usage to the single, appositive adjective, its use was even then strongly marked in poetry of a more lofty or passionate strain. It is, of course, strongly Latinate. Against the departure from parallelism, perhaps by an intended chiasmus, we might note a certain conceptual superiority in the imagery of circled round over cirkell round. The last seems at best pleonastic, a mark of style universally condemned in the rhetorics of the age, while circled round, personifies the sphere and invokes either the Ptolemaic round of this earth circled by the spheres, or-but less likely-the more recent Italian speculations that would see this earth circled by other planets and in turn itself circling the sun. Nevertheless, in spite of one's ability 122

to make out an apparent case for the MSR reading, I believe

the (l ) reading Is the original. Some such thoughts as those

I have outlined above may of course have guided the Selimus-

author In "Improving" the original expression of his source.

This would seem plausible to me and would strengthen the line of thought I wish to suggest; the lines In the Longleat papers

existed In original form other than the manuscript that lies

Immediately behind the Selimus quarto In 159^.

Some god tooke out of this confused masse (l ) Some God tooke out of the confused masse, (MSR)

Here again, the difference between the texts, although small, are Interesting. Verbally, they are confined to a difference between this In the Longleat papers and the In the play, but again this would seem difficult to account for on the theory that the Longleat copier copied only the quarto. Writing the for this would be much more usual In hasty or careless transcription than would be the writing of this for the. In addition, one Is not accustomed to thinking of Michael Hicks being a hasty. Incompetent, or careless trans­ criber In matters that might have a bearing on the highest matters of state. The problem of capitalization has some obvious and some puzzling features. The play of course follows printing conventions and capitalizes the first letter of the first word of each line of verse. The Longleat passage.

If It Is correctly copied by Mrs. Lomas, has three, and only three, lines beginning with a capital letter. The opening 123

line, "When first this circell round, . , line 21 "Then

som sage man amonge the vulgarr"; and line 36 "But who see

well his cogitations frames." In each ease, orj ratheg ac­ curately, lines 21 and 36 are preceded by a period at the end

of lines 20 and 35» In other words, the use of capitalization

in the Longleat passage is clearly rhetorical and logical in

purpose. It sets off the terms that give the "argument" of

the passage; "When," "Then," and "But." The periods mark just that: real periods in the thought, not simply convention­

al marks of lesser punctuation. Incidentally, it would appear

that line 21 is incomplete in the Longleat papers. We shall

comment at greater length on this matter when we reach this point in the passage. But, to draw together the above dis­

cussion on punctuation, it is unlikely that the Longleat

copier would have so carefully and methodically used capitals

only to mark the major points of the passage, carefully omitting the pervasive capitals of the play-text, and again reserving his periods only for the close of the three marked

sections. I should urge that it is far more likely that the

Longleat copier has given us the original draft or a fair- copy of the first author's hand. These uses of capitalization and period would seem to me to reflect the clear pattern of a

scribe from a play-text decked out with the full paraphernalia

of conventional punctuation. Again, we note the printing of

the play-text as God in Some God, while the Longleat passage 124 has the small g, some god. Although I have not examined every play printed by Creede, it was conventional to capitalize God- always, of course, when referring to the Christian God, usu­ ally, when referring to the pagan Gods. However, the small g denoted only the pagan gods and thus, ironically enough, if the Longleat copier wished to collect "hellish verses devysed by that Atheist and traitor Rawley," he would have been far better advised to have copied the lines as they ap­ pear in the play with the capitals, with their blasphemous overtones, than to use the small letters, which might express merely the contempt Raleigh or another author may have had for the powers of the pagan deities. This last implication would have been highly orthodox; it was the standard form of the fathers of the Church. Of course in the play, the shock­ ing blasphemy accords with decorum; this is what an Eliza­ bethan audience would have expected a bloody infidel and a Turk to boot to say about creation. Needless to say, no single idea could be more shocking to a devout Muslim than the ideas expressed by Selimus on this point. The above points are more fully brought out in the contrasting third lines: what god I do not know nor greatly care (L) (What God I do not know, nor greatly care) (MSR) It is difficult to account fully and satisfactorily for the parenthesis in the Creede quarto. In this passage, it is both grammatically and rhetorically appropriate; since 125

the title page of Selimus purports to give us the play "As

it was playd by the Queenes Maiesties Players.", we might

even suppose the parenthesis marked a cue for a player*s

change in tone. The difficulty is that there is not the slightest consistency in these matters. The issue has been

widely canvassed and hotly disputed among scholars for de­

cades. The point at issue turns upon two conceptions of Elizabethan acting, conventional and realistic. For example,

if the parenthesis above was related to a player's cue as

regards tone and change of pace, it might be another straw

to weight the scales of those who hold for a strong vein of

realism in acting emerging about this time. I should hesi­

tate even to identify the source of the parenthesis; perhaps Creede inserted it as a matter of course; perhaps the original

author of the passage is also the author of Selimus, and the parenthesis represents his corrected version; perhaps the author of Selimus^ in adapting the passage from a borrowed manuscript source, wished to point more clearly the import

of the line. We cannot say. Likewise, I should not attach much significance to the absence of a parenthesis in the

Longleat paper as arguing an original source for the Longleat passage other than the play-text itself. Of course, as I try to show, a presumption in favor of an independent source stands on far more secure grounds than these. The principal point here is that the variants in Elizabethan punctuation. 126 especially as concerns printing, are, at present, either not sufficiently well understood or are simply too arbitrary to offer any strong guidelines for extended interpretations of significant implication,

then every one his owne director was, fb) Then euery man of his owne dition was, (MSR)

With these lines we come upon more baffling diffi­ culties. In this instance, the Longleat version gives us a perfectly intelligible line; the Creede quarto, a more obscure sense. However, throughout the remainder of the passage, the

Creede quarto shows the most careful attention to carrying out a fixed rime-scheme, ababbcc. This scheme is never once broken throughout the lines of the play that are clearly re­ lated to the Longleat lines. These latter, on the other hand, while obviously using the Rhyme Royal pattern as the organiz­ ing base for the whole, depart seriously from the form in several lines; these lines have all the marks of a first draft and would appear to indicate that the author intended their further revision. We must now quote the next line of the Selimus quarto in order that some possible light may be thrown on the relationship of the texts at this point.

And euery one his life in peace did passe. (MSR) There is no corresponding line for this in the

Longleat papers. With the additions, variations, and diver­ gencies of these lines, we have what I should consider as near definitive proof that the Longleat copier is working 127 from a source other than the printed text of the play or the manuscript that lay Immediately behind it. Furthermore, we have strong prima facie evidence that the author of Selimus is improving, expanding, and "polishing" the lines in the

Longleat papers. This would mean, therefore, that the source of the Longleat passages, must antedate the appearance of the printed quarto, 159^. This, in turn, opens up the fascinating vein of conjecture that would seem to place Raleigh in the context of "hellish and atheist" verses just in those years

1590-1594 in which Mr. Strathmann and others have so con­ fidently asserted we have no evidence that is not either circular, as in the case of Shakespeare's allusions, if real, in Loves Labour's Lost, or libelous, as in the writings of Father Robert Parsons. At the very least, it is now up to such scholars to disprove the ascription of the verses to Raleigh or to account for Hicks's erroneous ascription. What cannot be maintained is that Hicks, as an agent of Robert

Cecil in I603, simply copied out some lines from an anonymous play published nine years earlier and affixed "Rawley's" name as the author. The most plausible period in which papers and jottings of Raleigh and his companions might have come to Hicks's hand in such a period would have been 1592 when

Raleigh was confined to the Tower for his secret and highly censured marriage to Elizabeth Throckmorton. It is curious to speculate upon the possibility that Raleigh "ransomed the 128

time" by revising and expanding an old play. Yet, the reviser

or author of Selimus either had access to or was the original

author of the Longleat lines which certainly, apart from their

use in a dramatic context, would go far to sustain a conven­

tional charge of atheism or, at the least, of irréligion.

One has only to bring to mind the Marlowe matter and the

Baines note to see how highly charged the whole atmosphere

of this time was upon these questions. Do we, in fact, have

the hidden hand of Christopher Marlowe himself in the play? For the time being, I think not. But all of the implications of these lines in the immediate context of these years, offer pause. then war was not nor ritches was not knowne fL) Warre was not then, and riches were not knowne, (MSR)

One of the most interesting features of change in these lines concerns the meter. Both the author of the Longleat lines and the author of Selimus show a marked aversion for the very common Inversion in the first foot of an iambic pentameter line. The author of the Selimus quarto, while generally preferring a pure iamb in the first foot, seeks to restrict the trochaic substitution to lines that open with a verb. In this same speech from which we are excerpting the lines for comparison, I shall give all in­ stances of a line showing other than a pure iamb in the first foot. Nourish the coales of thine ambitious fire. (Line 235) 129

Thinke that to thee there is no worse reproach, (Line 238)

Leaue to old men and babes that kind of follie, (Lines 247- Count it of equall value with the mud; 249) Make thou a passage for thye gushing floud.

While I admit that strictly speaking one could imagine each of the above monosyllabic verbs to be capable of taking only a light stress, the heavier stress falling on the follow­ ing monosyllable, I confess that the imperative or at least hortatory force of the verbs seem to me to be so great that the sense stress alone of the line would ride over any attempt­ ed pattern of pure artifice.

Wisedome commands to follow tide and winder (Line 270) Quickly unfold mine owne opinion, (Line 304) and, more doubtfully, Giue me the heart conspiring with the hand, (Line 290)

Faith all the loue twext him and me is done. (Line 298)

The point to be observed here is that out of one hundred and fifty lines of passionate dialogue, the drama­ tically effective device of the substituted trochee for the first iamb is used only three times certainly, and six times more doubtfully. A similar restraint is shown by the author of the Longleat lines. In fifty-nine lines of highly drama­ tic verse, we find these lines alone either certainly or partially exhibiting what the author must have felt was an extraordinary metrical licence.

knowing that lawes could not in quiet dwell . . . 130

palnes for theis that did neglecte the law . . .

onely bugberes to keepe the worlde in feare . . .

I Justify my Inclusion of this last line as an example of substituted trochee by the metrical form of two other lines in the Longleat passage which would seem to require that onely receive its heavy stress on the opening syllable. These lines are given by way of illustration of this point:

was onely found to make that peaceable

shall onely fynd they were but for to strick . . . and finally, to complete our survey of the Longleat passage on this point

differs from him which doth his father kill. Thus we have four lines in all, surely no great num­ ber. I would stress that in neither instance are we dealing with material that does not seek the dramatic effect of the trochaic opening; the case is quite the contrary. The re­ straint must reflect a common desire to admit the licence sparingly. In view of this bias, there would seem to be no apparent reason why the revision of the Longleat line should occasion here an opening substitution. As for the Longleat line itself, the Selimus author apparently rejected what he took to be illogical negatives and false concord. Yet a simple remedy was at hand: "then warre was not and riches were not knowne." His version does, however, create a greater sense of parallelism and something of the figure of 131

repetltlOj and presumably, the rhetorical possibilities seem everywhere to be in the forefront of dramatist’s minds in

these years. As support for our original point however, here

again, we see the same situation as before; there must have been a source independent of the final text play that served as the basis of the Longleat lines.

and no man said then this or that ys my owne (L) And no man said, this, or this, is mine owne. (MSR)

The relationship between these two lines offers further

interesting conjecture about Elizabethan meter and punctuation, grammatical and rhetorical. In the Longleat line, there would appear to be no metrical scansion which would fail to yield an anapest in the last foot. One could scarcely imagine a more barbarous dissonance falling on a classically trained ear; the iambic line accords but ill with such a variation. Now in strict scansion of the line, the Selimus revision could be said to yield five pure iambs; of course, this disregards performing stress. Yet, we note the commas placed within the line seemingly to insure that it must not be taken ac­ cording to the meter, but rather sense stress must override, yielding a five stress line but at the cost of retaining the anapest in the final foot. Within cautious limits, I should be disposed to accept the punctuation in this line of the

Selimus quarto as indicative of performing stress. We re­ call that the title page of the quarto informed us that the 132 play had been acted by the Queenes Maiesties Players. Here again, if we are Justified in so taking this marking, we strengthen slightly the hand of those scholars who see in these years a more realistic speaking style making its way into the hitherto commanding style of declamatory, formalized speech that most scholars have held was the note of tragedy in the sixteenth century drama. As we know, possibly the controlling theory of tragedy believed it to be in essentials a branch of declamatory rhetoric, closely related to the oration.

the plowman with a furrowe did not marke how far his great possessions they did reache (L)

The plough-man with a furrow did not marke How far his great possessions did reach: (MSR)

These lines are of interest in the one change shown by the Quarto. As we know, there had been for some time a growing disapproval of the appositive subject pronoun. It was felt to be distinctly old-fashioned, if not an actual solecism. Evidently the reviser of the line in Selimus must have thought so. But now interesting light on another problem arises. Clearly possessions could be sounded as a trisyllable; this would be the case if we assume the Longleat couplet above is metrically complete. When, however, the appositive subject pronoun, they, was dropped in the revised line, it would seem that the four syllable po-ses-si-ons was available as an alternate form if we assume the revised line is also 133 metrically full. All -tion and -sion endings in this period were slowly changing to the modern value of a monosyllable.

However, in Locrine, for example, one of the most striking features of line after line in the play is the obviously tri-syllabic value required for 0-ce-an. I have never seen a complete study of this feature of dramatic metric thoroughly worked out for our period. My impression however is that by

1594 the di-syllabic -tion endings carried an archaic flavor.

We must remember however that archaism was decidedly in favor in quite a few quarters at this time. Spenser and his ad­ mirers seemingly could not have enough of it. In any case, one might have some evidence here that the alternate forms of pronunciation were both acceptable, even though their connotations may have been slightly different.

the earth knew not the shore nor the sea the barke (l ) The earth knew not the share, nor seas the barke. (MSR) The variant shore-share is worthy of mention. Ob­ viously the Quarto gives the reading required by sense and parallel figure; the ploughshare plows the earth; the bark plows the seas. The Longleat shore could have arisen of course from scribal carelessness, but I think one might plausibly conjecture here a manuscript rather than a printed source as being more consonant with the confusion in trans­ cription. Again we notice in the Longleat version an anapest in the fourth foot, while in the Quarto line we see this 134 irregularity carefully removed. Since we have an external ascription of the Longleat lines to Raleigh, it is perhaps pertinent to note here that Raleigh's scansion is far more satisfactorily handled by dispensing largely with the borrowed classical metrics and reading his lines as strongly three- four-or five-beat lines controlled almost entirely by sense stress. Although Sidney had united syntactic with metrical stress in a harmony unrivalled before or since in our letters, there endures from Wyatt through Gascoigne to Donne, a vital tradition of the strong-stressed beat, regular but indiffer­ ent to exact demands of syllabification. That Raleigh, as a poet, belongs most assuredly to this grouping is a critical commonplace. Seen from this perspective, it is of course misleading to speak of offending anapests; there are simply the strong beats, earth, not, shore, sea, and barke. Around each strong stress either one or two lighter stresses may indifferently group themselves as the exigencies of the thought require. The alliterative force of knew and not creates balanced stress and provides the subtle modification of a regular pattern which seems to be close to the center of the enduring appeal of Elizabethan dramatic verse and which has been the despair of all later imitators. The Selimus line shows the Sidney ideal: retention of the dramatic strength of sense stress Joined to perfect metrical regularity.

nor soldiours dared not the battered breach (l ) The souldiers entred not the battred breach (MSR) 135

In these lines we encounter some old characteristics

and meet others that are new. As we have seen, the author of the Longleat lines would seem to construe the negative

adverb within a negative correlative disjunctive clause as

merely intensifying in effect. My impression is that this is

common in the writing of the age. But, as before, there must

have been a growing awareness of the logical problems of this

form, because here, as before in the change from "nor ritches was not knowne" (L) to "and ritches were not knowne" (MSR)

the play text conforms to modern usage which demands logical

concord rather than rhetorical intensification. Now if we suppose that even the author of the Longleat lines felt some

obligation to make his lines reflect "the spacious volubilitie

of a drumming decasillabon," we may assume that either in the spoken form itself or more likely in the permitted conventions of stage speech, dared could be sounded as a disyllable. The

revision in the Selimus lines would indicate considerable un­ certainty on this point however since the clearly disyllablic entred has been substituted, even at the expense of the greater

force of dared. As we have seen, the Selimus author is every­ where at pains to establish greater regularity and polish than is reflected in the Longleat lines. One must constantly keep

in mind, however, that the two texts may very well represent

two stages of composition by the same author, the Longleat

lines being a first draft and the Selimus lines the finished 136 version. I should be inclined to think, however, that the use of the merely intensifying force of the negative adverb not in the Longleat lines and the careful change of this form in the

Selimus lines would point to two separate authors. If the same author felt so strongly the need for the change, would he not have felt it as the natural form of his presumed first draft in the Longleat copy?

nor trumpets loud tantara then did teache (l ) Nor Trumpets the tantara loud did teach. (MSR)

The change here in the play-text is unusually inter­ esting and offers, I should urge, exceptionally strong grounds for seeing two differing hands in the two passages. The syntax of the Longleat line seems reasonably clear. Did Teache is in its expressed form, intransitive, but by ellipsis is under­ stood to have for its object some such idea as the art of war.

Trumpets is of course in the attributive genetive position and form, and tantara is the subject of the verb. Now quite clearly the Selimus author did not so construe the line, or, if it is the same author, decided to give a differing sense to the line. In the Quarto version the insertion of the determina­ tive article makes clear that the tantara is the object of of did teach and Trumpets is the subject. It is of course perfectly intelligible but I must confess I find the pro­ sopopoeia a trifle strained, although it can easily be matched and overpassed by hundreds of contemporary examples. Again

I find it difficult to suppose that the same author is 137

responsible for both lines; I find it much easier to suppose a second hand involved in the adapting and revising, and

failing, in this instance, to grasp quickly the initial idea

or perhaps, favoring a recasting of the idea, gave us the Selimus line. One might note that in both instances tantara would seem to receive in these lines its heaviest stress on

the second syllable. This interests me very much since in view of the obviously onomatopoeic force of the word, one might conjecture that the prevailing trumpet calls conformed t to the rhythmic pattern of this accent-tan-ta-ra rather than I I to the later and more usuàl tan-ta-ra. I should hold that the alliterative structure of the lines makes us almost cer­ tain that the heavy stress in this word occurred on the second syllable. No poet of the competence of the author of each or both of these lines would have so mangled the accent as would happen were the modern pronunciation intended. We reach again a sharp divergence in the rhyme schemes of the two passages, I give below the first line of the Longleat and the succeeding two lines of the Selimus text. they neided then nothing of whom to stand in awe (L) There needed them no iudge, not yet no law. Nor any King of whom to stand in awe. (MSR)

Unfortunately, we are unable to ascertain from these lines alone just what the original draft of the Longleat 138 lines may have been. We can be quite certain that the over­ all organization of the Longleat lines is the same rhyme royal as the Selimus passage. Now, without undue strain, we can make out a perfectly good sense reading of the Longleat passage Just as it stands. Clearly, however, the major con­ sideration of the Selimus author is to insure the perfect regularity of the rhyme royal scheme and thus there is an expansion of the line into the required c-c of the final couplet. It is tempting to conjecture that either the author of the Selimus revision or the printer working from a some­ what illegible manuscript read "they neided then" as "there needed them," taking them as a dative of reference with possessive force as was the case with the Latin form from which this was borrowed and giving us a subjectless verb outside of the imperative mood. I should think it might be valuable to collect all such conjectures that have a show of probability since our materials for comparing manuscript with printed copy in the plays of this period total nine in all.

An interesting insight into the structure of thought of the time may be seen in the form of amplification used by the

Selimus author. The order of Judge, law, and King is an order of climax and represents the hierarchy of authority in state and church. Thus the couplet is far more carefully wrought and far more subversive than might appear from first glance. The immediate application is of course civil. The 139

King, above the law being its source, is highest; the law is the median term, and its executor is the Judge. This was thought to be, of course, the temporal image or shadow of the divine order, God-Christ the King; the Old and New Law; and the Church and its ministers, the Judge. Grammatically, one notes a seeming inconsistency in the use of negative con­ junctive nor with adjectival r^; it would appear that the logical clash was far more strongly felt when adverbial not followed in the clause than was the case with adjectival no.

But after Nunus warlicke Bellus sonne (l ) But after Ninus, warlike Belus sonne, (m SR)

with uncouth armoure did the earth array fL) The earth with unknowne armour did warray, (MSR)

then first the sacred name of king begann (l ) Then first the sacred name of King begunne: (MSR)

Here, as in the immediately preceding lines, we have exact correspondence between the lines; the begann-begunne variant is so slight that it could easily be ascribed to the

Longleat copier. The rhyme of course requires begunne. The interest of the line is primarily philosophical. It follows here a highly heterodox view in its thought and expression.

The name of the king in orthodox Christian thought was sacred because it was held that the king’s authority was instituted by and dependent upon God. In Christian ages and practice this was made manifest by the liturgy of coronation. Here however king and sacred spring from war and human ambition; the ground both of law and religion has a "human, all too 140

human" origin. It is, of course, completely Nietzchean; one

must emphasize that medieval and Renaissance thought was

greatly concerned with genetic questions. Origins, although

not finally and absolutely, were, to a very great extent,

regulative of ethical matters. I am suggesting no simple

view of this most complex matter, but no matter what the

differences among themselves might have been, the historic

origin posited here of kingship and sacred right must have

seemed the quintessence of blasphemy to most men of this age.

Of course the Papacy and its Curia neither in theory nor

practice had ever had an exaggerated respect for the sacred

power of kingship. It had often shown a cynical ability to

use this respect, but its whole medieval history is marked

by its relentless opposition to the Sacred King theory. But the point is, the Catholic tradition took a less exalted view

of King's sacred power only because it took a more exalted view of the sacred nature of its own power. This is the

source of the "deposing" power of the Pope. Of course, the view expressed in these lines, if held outside of the con­

fines of dramatic representation, and the requirements of decorum, were perilously close to treason as defined by

Elizabethan statute. and things that were as common as the day did yeld themselves and lykewise did obey (L)

And things that were as common as the day. Did then to set possesseurs first obey. (MSR) I4l

These couplets reveal the same situation discussed

earlier: the Selimus author apparently considered the figure, prosopopoeia, too obscure for dramatic effectiveness and re­

vised the lines for a more immediately literal sense, retain­ ing only an echo of the original figure. It would be inter­ esting to trace out medieval and Renaissance, indeed, even classical, thought on the dispute between the natural and

conventional origin of property rights. This of course represents an extreme of the conventional, arbitrary, and non-natural origin of property rights of man over things.

The more widespread "natural-law" doctrine held that man naturally had owning rights of things since he needed them for the perfection of his mind and soul. However, throughout the Christian centuries this had been hopelessly entangled in confusion with the counsels of supernatural perfection that seemed to suggest that man's highest perfection came about from adjuring property rights, however natural. Medieval and Renaissance Christian thought certainly never counten­ anced such a Hobbesian view of the matter as is here sketched out. We now come to two lines in the Longleat copy that are missing in their entirety from the play-text. This point is of course decisive for our argument, which is, in its initial contention, that there is some source separate from the printed quarto of Selimus for the lines ascribed to 142

Raleigh in the Longleat papers. The two lines are:

and with a common muttering discontent gave that to tyme which tyme cannot prevent.

We see at once the drift of the lines - they continue the figure of the personified things - and we see why the

Selimus author, having largely replaced figurative expression with literal reference, was now faced with a challenge in adaptation that may have defeated his ingenuity. The pre­ cise meaning of the second line is admittedly obscure; if pressed for a reading, I should take it in some such sense as the following: the force of the line consists upon a turn upon two philosophic implications of time, both derivative from a single, more general idea - the decline from the per­ fection of a golden age through the ages of baser metals, manners, and conditions. Thus in the first part of the line,

'gave that to tyme,' tyme is personified or coalesced into the earlier and referential figure of the tyrant-any owner of things taken from common use by force. But by paradox and witty turn, time in its literal sense is powerless to arrest the decay of the world, I do not here take prevent in the sense of come before. Thus Time the tyrant, both by figure and epithet, is now seen as utterly without power over that which its own actions bring about. Needless to say, figures of this kind have always attracted poets and in the

Renaissance were constructed with a zest and ingenuity that has been a lasting wonder to succeeding ages. Modern critical 143

taste, I venture to think, has rather exaggerated their

aesthetic success. In any case, the Selimus author now adds

two lines of his own, not to be found in any form in the Longleat papers.

Then they establisht lawes and holy rites. To maintains peace, and gouerne bloodie fights. (MSR)

While these lines certainly need no gloss, it may be thought that their clarity has been purchased at some cost in poetic force. ,0n the qui vive of dramatic performance,

however, they would be effective in bringing out the steps of the argument which now continues;

Then som sage man amonge the vulgarr knowing that lawes could not in quiet dwell (l )

Then some sage man, aboue the vulgar wise. Knowing that lawes could not in quiet dwell, (MSR)

The omission of a final syllable in the first line

and the requirements of the rhyme render it likely that we have here merely a scribal omission on the part of the

Longleat copier. We have here the variant amonge-aboue which might easily reflect a scribal error in the Longleat

copier or Creede's mis-reading of the Selimus manuscript. Both readings commend themselves to sense; aboue is the more usual form of the stock expression. unies the(y) were observed did first devyse the name of god, religion, heaven and hell (L)

Unlesse they were obseued: did first deuise The names of Gods, religion, heauen, and hell, (MSR)

The lines here as through the greater part of this 144 middle section, run parallel, except that the play-text, either through squeamishness on the adapter's part or the requirements of the censorship used the plural form of God and thus made clear Its pagan connotations. This would seem to point to the capitalization as a mere printing convention since the effect of this change Is unmistakably to soften the substantive Implications of the line In the Longleat copy. The use of the colon, here as elsewhere In the play, does not seem to reflect any consistent grammatical requirement, but would seem to point to rhetorical emphasis, a pointing for correct delivery. and galne of palnes and faire rewardes to tell (L) And gan of palnes, and falnd rewards to tell; (MSR)

In the variant galne,-gan we have the only Instance of the figure, aphaeresls, common to both passages. Among writers who did not affect archaism as an aesthetic Ideal, aphaeresls was sparingly used. This Is certainly the case with both of our authors (if we are dealing with more than one). The transcription Itself could easily reflect the error of the Longleat copier, although I see no reason for getting carried away with this theory of endlessly careless and Incompetent scribes and copiers. We always come back to the question as to why Michael Hicks should be Interested In a careless or Inexact copy. All the known and Inferred cir­ cumstances surrounding his "collection" of this passage would 145

point to his wanting the most exact copy possible. Thus,

there are plausible grounds for supposing that the transcrip­

tion does in fact throw light upon characteristics of the

script which may well have been an autograph of the original

author. Taken by themselves such patterns of possible confusion would probably tell us little, but, should one be able to

collect enough of them so that a characteristic pattern of mistaken readings occur, then some light may be thrown on

this matter when these patterns are compared with known and

identified autographs of the period. These last, are, alas, not many. The variant faire-faind would of course have to be considered as such a possibility. Still, I confess, this probability seems a slight one. Both adjectives yield ex­ cellent sense, but I suppose the Selimus author considered faind to be more congruent with the sense of the overall passage, as, indeed, it probably is.

paines for theis that did neglecte the lawe (l ) Paines for those men which did neglect the law, (MSR) The principal point of interest in this variation concerns a matter raised earlier. The author of the Longleat lines is far less concerned with insuring a decasillabon in every line than is the author of the Selimus passage. Here, notice that in the Longleat lines one does not have the per­ mitted trochee substitute in the first foot; there is simply that heavy-stressed paines and, from an earlier English 146

metrical point of view the foot is incomplete, I may as well

make clear that it is idle to discuss prosodic matters with

any scholar or critic that would seek to retain the terminol­

ogy of classical metrics hut would separate stress and

syllable-counting in its application to non-classical language,

the modern vernaculars, English had long possessed its own

system of prosody which has nothing to do with the classical

form, and we may well see here the predilection of the Longleat author for a development of this native system. The tetrameter or pentameter line is merely approximated; the real principle of control is simply the presence of four or five strong beats in the line governed predominantly by sense stress. It is true that the syllables do not vary wildly, but there is no apparent feeling of strain should a five-beat line vary from eight to twelve syllables. The interest for us at the moment is that such a prosody is clearly much closer to Raleigh's characteristic practice than is the union of light and heavy stress recurrence with careful attention to syllable- counting. Now the Selimus reviser has added the requisite tenth syllable, for. I would not be misunderstood here. I am not maintaining that there is any major difference in the final dramatic rendering of the two lines; this, in the final analysis, is beside the point at dispute. The variant that- which, beyond showing one text as a revision or adaptation of the other, throws little further light. That is perhaps the more common relative, but which was widely used. 147

rewardes for him that lived in quiet awe (L) Rewards, for those that liu'd in quiet awe. (MSR)

The variant him-those would seem to strengthen the liking the Selimus author had for parallelism in closely related expression.

whereas in deid they were mere fictions (l ) Whereas indeed they were meere fictions, (MSR) Deid probably being manuscript has a better chance of being author's autograph than does the indeed of Selimus which may reflect a normalization by Creede.

and if they were not yet (l thinke) they were (l ) - And if they were not, Sellm thinks they were: (MSR)

The change here in the Selimus line is one of major interest for our study. This is the only passage using material contained within the Longleat papers that shows its express change to the purposes of dramatic characterization in Selimus. Although I suppose one could maintain that the author of the lines copied out by the Longleat hand could have taken the play and exercised Just this passage, altering

Selim to yet I, the motive and rationale for such a procedure would be impenetrably obscure, and, besides, every other inference derived from comparative analysis of the two sec­ tions tells in quite the opposite direction. The alteration appears perfectly natural if we assume the Longleat lines to have existed in independent form prior to their use by the last author and/or reviser of Selimus in 1594 quarto. Since this is such a strong possibility, the Longleat lines take 148 on a wealth of fascinating implications. The most intriguing alternative concerns their original provenance. Who is the antecedent of the pronoun I in the Longleat copy? The major possibilities here are not as between one Elizabethan author and another author, but rather between a possible reference to the writer in his own person and a reference to the char­ acter speaking them in a literary work. The exigencies of decorum would thus fail to cover the shocking nature of the statements if taken as the personal credo of an Elizabethan

Englishman, This of course would in no way exclude the possibility that a persona either in dramatic or non-dramatic form might truly be a mouthpiece for the author’s deepest convictions. The critical controversy that has raged for decades around Milton's Satan is evidence to the contrary. But there must have been nothing in Hicks's copy at Longleat to indicate that these lines were excerpted from a literary work in which they served the purposes of characterization. Indeed, I should suppose the pejorative sense in which they are ascribed to Raleigh would render such an original matrix extremely unlikely since no critical distinction was more clear to every literate person of late sixteenth century England than this very distinction. The school exercises and rhetoric books had hammered this point home in endless ways. Nevertheless, there remains the nagging plausibility that the most likely source for the lines would be an older 149

manuscript version of Selimus. Since we have both external

and Internal reasons for thinking that the present quarto 1594

represents a revision of an older play, the possibility men­

tioned must be counted as strong. Here the assumption would

be that Selimus speaking the lines In the older play simply

referred to himself when he said yet (l thinke), But In this

case we are, then confronted with the need to seek a reason

for the play-text change. Why would the author-revlser of Selimus change a perfectly straightforward and more dramatic

form In his original material In order to have the protagonist

of the play, who Is alone upon the stage, refer to himself In

this one passage of the play In the third person? Here, It

would seem more plausible to assume that the original matrix

of these lines had no connection with the play, Selimus, and that a strong consciousness of this fact Impelled the adapter

to guard against chance confusion. The precaution was perhaps

excessive, but psychologically I would claim more force for

this last order of handling than for alternative theories.

It Is also perhaps worth a slight note to recall that In

every other Instance In this long soliloquy In which Selimus has occasion to refer to himself, he uses the full form of the name. Not too much can be made of the shortened form here since elsewhere In the play It Is used wherever the meter of the lines requires It. That Is surely the case here, but again this would Imply that the Longleat version 150 had prior existence, and, again, that the Longleat form had the requisite number of syllables; indeed Selim, the short form, was surely used to substitute for yet 1,

and those religious observationes (l ) and these religious obseruations, (MSR)

The variant those-these in the above lines calls attention to a curiousity in the relationship of the two longer passages. In most instances in which the demonstra­ tive pronoun either singular or plural occurs in the Longleat form,the Selimus play-text uses the other form. We may note in earlier passages; then no man said then this or that ys my owne (L), And no man said, this, or this, is mine owne.

(MSR); paines for theis that did neglect the law, (l ), Paines for those men which did neglect the law, (MSR); and our pre­ sent passage. I must confess that I cannot assess the sig­ nificance, if any, of these changes since I do not perceive the reason for the change in the first instance. It is, of course, just possible that those-these represent a confusion in the reading of manuscript. Again the alteration of such pronouns might have been carried out by the printer. All manner of men have had fantastic crotchets about the minutiae of grammar. It is perhaps pointless to seek too much sig­ nificance in variants in these matters.

onely bugberes to keepe the worlde in feare Onely bug-beares to keepe the world in feare, (MSR)

The line would seem to have been taken over with no 151

significant changes. The variant spelling bugberes-bug-

beares might possibly fit into a wider study of the author­

ship of the Longleat lines. While Elizabethan spelling was..

wildly variant in its forms, we might reasonably expect some­ what greater consistency in the practice of one author, and

thus the spelling bugberes could conceivably be characteristic of some member of the Raleigh grouping. It would, however, take a great many swallows of this kind to make even a short summer.

and make them quietly the yoke to here fL) And make men quietly a yoake to beare, (MSR)

In the Longleat lines, the antecedent of them is of course worlde. It would seem that the author of the Selimus lines felt this to be rather dubious usage and thus made the sense somewhat more precise by men rather than them. The alliteration of made-men leads to balanced stress and accords nicely with quietly; it would appear to be an aesthetic im­ provement, The changing of the to a before yoke is teasing.

The connotations are surprisingly different, but the reason for the change remains somewhat elusive to me and perhaps it is too tenuous for further comment;

so that religion of itself a fable (L) So that religion of it selfe a bable, (MSR)

The fable-bable variant seems equally difficult to account for satisfactorily. Both terms fit the context, but

I would suppose that most critics would prefer the Longleat 152

fable which seems to accord with and to develop the earlier

mere fictions. While the discrepancy could easily be ac­

counted for in confusion of manuscript reading, the interest

lies in knowing at what point and where the confusion, if any, occurred. The point could conceivably be of paleographical interest if taken in conjunction with a sufficient body of other evidence.

was only found to make that peaceable fL) Was onely found to make us peaceable. (MSR)

Here, as we noted earlier we find the alteration of demonstrative pronoun that to another form, in this instance, the ^ picking up the earlier change, men, I would suppose that the author of the Longleat lines intended that to have world as its antecedent as was the case with them. The sig­ nificance of these cumulative changes thus appear to me to be greater than would be the case were any to be taken singly.

I should infer here at least two different authors rather than the revision of an earlier draft by the same author. I think it more plausible to suppose that basic forms of grammar and usage would tend to be largely unconscious, and if one felt strongly enough about their impropriety to alter them in revision, it is unlikely that one would have used them in the first instance. herein especially comes the foolish names (L) Hence in especiall come the foolish names, (MSR)

The characteristics of metrical smoothness earlier 153 noted in the Selimus text come strongly to the fore again.

In the Longleat lines, on the other hand, as before, a certain metrical roughness characterizes the lines. Of course, the Longleat transcriber may simply have read herein especially and the Selimus-reviser read Hence in especiall for precisely the same writing in a manuscript common to both. As we have seen the characteristic structure of the verse in this passage is the rhyme royal stanza. With the contrasted stanzas of the two documents we now come to the most baffling crux in our analysis. In order to bring out the nature of the problem,

1 shall print in capital letters the lines of the stanza as they appear in the Longleat manuscript. Beneath, in regular type, 1 shall reproduce the lines from the Quarto.

HEREIN ESPECIALLY COMES THE FOOLISH NAMES Hence in especiall come the foolish names,

OP FATHER MOTHER BROTHER AND SUCH LYKE. Of father, mother, brother, and such like:

BUT WHO SOE WELL HIS COGITATIONS FRAMES For who so well his cogitation frames,

SHALL ONELY FYND THEY WERE BUT FOR TO STRICK Shall find they serue but onely for to strike

INTO OUR MINDS AS TEVER (sic) KIND OF LYKE Into our minds a certaine kind of loue

REGARD OF SOME FOR SHEW, FOR FEARE, FOR SHAME. For these names too are but a pplicie.

To keepe the quiet of societie. One must make clear that in the Longleat manuscript no lines except the third above begins with a capital. It 154

would seem that the Sellmus-reviser began to have difficulty

at Just that spot where corruption overtakes the Longleat

passage. At least, I should assume that his departure from the required rhyme in the fifth line was a kind of desperate maneuver to pull something out of the chaos. Of course, he may have wished to avoid the repetition of like from the second line. The change to loue seems to extend back into the line too far for this latter to be the major reason. The transcriber for the Historical Manuscripts Commission has, as we note, indicated the difficulty in the reading at the fifth line, I once thought it might be AS IT WERE, but I have less than no confidence in this emendation,

I suppose one might try to take the last Longleat line as Line six of the stanza, trying to make it yield some sense when following upon KIND OP LYKE. All of this seems to me unsatisfactory. In any case, such efforts are overborne by a weightier consideration. But since this consideration in­ volves an even greater perplexity, we must try to conjecture a range of possibilities. The final line of the Longleat stanza, hereafter called Line B, "regard of some for shew, for feare, for shame," would strongly suggest that it is built upon the rhetorical figure of Mesozeugma, Peacham in his The Garden of Eloquence gives the following discussion of this figure : Zuegma, when there is some common thing, or word in lyke clauses, and being put in one clause, is requyred in the other not chaunged, and that common 155

thing or word, is put in a construction three manner of wayes . . . Prozeugma, when that common word is put in the fyrst clause. Mesozeugma, when that, common word is put in the middle clause. Hypozeugma, when the common word is put in the last c l a u s e .

Now if we are confronted with a use of this figure in Line B,

then the figure is one of mesozeugma, the common element being

of some. Thus, the fully expanded expression would then be

regard of some for shew, of some for feare, and of some for

shame. The gradatio from shew to shame may well combine this

figure with paranomasia. It would be read as a figure of prozeugma with the common "word," regard of some, carrying through the rest of the figure. Now the point of this is simple; Line B of the Longleat copy must be either the sixth or the seventh and last line of a rime royal stanza. The rhetorical order of climax involving mesozeugma and paranomasia would establish an overwhelming probability that it would be the seventh and final line. In such a case, our efforts to make sense of the fifth line. Line A above, followed at once by Line B, the seventh line, would not be likely to be tri­ umphantly successful. Were this our only problem, however, we should be well out of the woods. A more plausible conjecture could envisage a reasonably careful scribe omitting an entire line rather more easily than omitting crucial elements within the line, and so we could simply postulate a missing sixth line as present in the original manuscript for the Longleat copy and that would account for our difficulties. But, we

^^Henry Peacham, The Garden of Eloquence, (Gainesville, Fla.: Scholars* Facsimiles and Reprints, 1954), p. E iiii verso. 156

note that it is this very spot that has given the greatest

amount of trouble to the final redactor of the Selimus text.

This in turn would suggest a most curious state of affairs.

It would appear that the Longleat copier and the Selimus adapter worked either from the same or from an identical manuscript source, since it would seem to pass the bounds of coincidence to suppose two scribal transcriptions of an ori­ ginal manuscript should both omit a crucial line at exactly the same place, if in fact the line was there. Now this in turn opens up once again possibilities that seem at variance with other implications. We can in fact imagine a state of affairs that would account satisfactorily for this matter.

There was an old manuscript copy of an old play of the Queen's

Company, Selimus. The copy may well have been an abridgment and have been the sole copy that survived. The sixth line was missing perhaps as a result of the carelessness of the first transcriber, perhaps the author himself in preparing a prompt-copy for the company from the original author's foul papers. This was the manuscript given to the reviser 1591-

1594 and, of course, he had to do something with the corrupt passage. We have the result in the printed quarto. But this faces us once more with the seemingly inescapable conclusion that the source of the Longleat lines would then be this same prompt-copy or fair-papers of the author of the original play.

As we shall see later on, there is some slight evidence which suggests that the first version of Selimus dated from the 157

1570's. But if this is the case, what possible grounds would

Burleigh and Cecil's right-hand man have in I603 for carefully- endorsing these passages as "Certain hellish verses devysed by that Athiest and traitor Rawley ..." "Verses written by Sir Walter Rawleye, I603."?

The fact that a revision and dramatic use of these lines had appeared in a printed play of 159^ would seem strongly to argue against their use as evidence against Raleigh. at any time. It is worthy of mention, however, that we are told by the editor for the Malone Society, W. Bang, a most careful editor of Elizabethan plays, that "No entry of Selimus has been found on the Stationers' Registers." (p. v) Thomas

Creede was not the most scrupulous of printers and perhaps more light is needed on the circumstances surrounding its publication. Nowwe can easily imagine another state of affairs, but this seems equally curious. In this conjecture, we should suppose a manuscript copy of the verses; this copy would be completely separate from any connection with Selimus in any form. This would accord well with implications of the Longleat copy since the final line of the transcription within the quotation marks that surround the verse passage itself reads: "Finis R. W. alias W. Rawley." The Historical Manuscripts

Commission prints alias in italic type, all other entries in roman type, except Endorsed, the provenance of which is 158

utterly obscure In the present form of the Bath papers to

which I have access. Now usually, printed italic type indi­

cates the corresponding manuscript was in Italian hand, and

roman type indicates manuscript English hand. Since a great

number of persons wrote both, indifferently, it could well be

a momentary whim of the Longleat copier. We are throughout

our discussion here assuming that the Longleat manuscript is

not autograph, which, of course, it may well be. The opening

and closing notations would alone belong to the writer in

1603. In this event, however, we are confronted with the near

certainty that it was precisely this manuscript copy of the

verses that was accessible to the final readactor of Selimus,

sometime between 1591 and 159%. The implication of this is very strange. We do know that the Privy Council in Just these years was greatly exercised to collect evidence on this whole question of "athéisme" among the wits, scholars, and certain men of great place. The ransacking of Kyd's chambers and all the brou-ha-ha surrounding Marlowe's last days are going on at precisely this time. Similarly, a Commission of Inquiry is set up at Cerne Abbas in Dorsetshire in 1593 to sift reports of "atheist" opinions of Sir Walter and Carew Raleigh, then living at nearby Sherborne. It could well be that someone connected with a person or persons into whose keeping loose papers of Raleigh or his associates fell made a copy of this for Cecil's secretary, either because they were retained 159 intelligencers or hoped for some pleasant token of Hicks's regard if they handed him this morsel. We should then assume that the original was either in the possession of the Selimus author or attracted his passing notice as being singularly well-fitted to fattening out the soliloquy of Selimus. As we shall see later on, the final author, indeed, what appears to be the adapter concerned with our very lines, goes to great pains to make Corcut, the brother of Selimus, expound at some length and with evident sincerity a Christian homily. Should this latter state of affairs be the case, then most probably the copy used by the Selimus reviser and also used for Hicks's version might well have been a transcription of the original draft, and at this stage of the transcription the sixth line of the rime royal stanza which here concerns us was inadver­ tently omitted. And so to bring all this to a point, it would seem in the light of our present knowledge, that this crux does not admit of any solution that does not bring in its train the most bewildering implications and consequences.

indeid I must confes they were not bad because they keep the baser sorte in fere (l ) Indeed I must confesse they are not bad. Because they keepe the baser sort in feare: (MSR)

The text here of the two passages again coincides and from here until the end we encounter no puzzles on the scale of those we have just left. The variant were-are reflects the constant alteration of tense throughout the passage, and the final colon in the Selimus text will be considered when the provenance of punctuation is briefly surveyed. The implications 160

of the Ideas, however, of this particular section of our

passages need more extended consideration. We recall that

in the Longleat lines, as well as in the Selimus text, and

in the middle of which our most stubborn problems arise, the

main line of thought concerns the origin and use of those

"foolish names of father, mother, and brother and such like."

Now I should be prepared to argue that the import of these

lines as a whole would seem strongly to argue that they were

not intended in their original sense to be the direct expression

of any contemporary Elizabethan's personal philosophy of life.

Surely the more probable and natural inference is that they

were constructed to express the shocking philosophy of the

detestable Turk. In this case, we should have a strong in­

ference that the Longleat copy is simply a transcript of

fifty-nine lines from a copy of Selimus prior to the version

in printed quarto. This would seem especially to be the case

if we are to consider Raleigh as the author of the lines and

expressing herein his personal philosophy. Raleigh for all

his sinister reputation, most of it eminently deserved, was

conspicuous in the age for his love for his wife, the re­

doubtable Bess, and his strong affection for his close

relatives. With such a gentleman as Christopher Marlowe, one might be on fairly different ground. One would not wish to

dismiss out of hand the possibility that such lines could

come close to expressing Marlowe's considered thought. Of

course, the family life of Henry VIII and Mary Queen of Scots I6l was not such as to rule out the famous comment of the Victorian lady while witnessing Antony and Cleopatra, "How unlike the domestic arrangements of our own dear Queen." Nevertheless, the age, while unparalleled in its brutality, was finicky in its expression of sentiment, and the mind boggles at merely a representative English poet or dramatist holding these views as his personal credo. But, here again, if this is the case, we must reckon with many curious implications of the Hicks' notation on the Longleat paper. The problem is not obviously the simple one of characterizing the lines as a slander on

Raleigh, He had more than enough enemies who would have been only too glad to have done this; one must account for the fact that the libeller brought one of the most experienced and most shrewd men in Elizabethan London to a belief in its truth. This is not easy to come by, if the lines are nothing more than some copy from an old play-house manuscript, and, in addition, had been in print for nine years when the nota­ tion was made. We must recall that Selimus is described on its title page as an old "Queen's" play. If this be the case, surely no plays in the 1580's would have been more known to a constant member of the court than those of the

Queen's twelve men. Nevertheless, I would hold that in and of themselves, they point to the printed quarto of Selimus being a thoroughgoing revision of an older play,

but we whose myndes with noble thoughts ar clad (L) But we, whose minde in heauenly thoughts is clad (MSR) 162

These lines in their implications point in rather dif­ ferent directions, at least they point to different authors.

It would seem that we in the Longleat line is not exclusively

the royal The modifying adjective clause in its subject myndes with its concordant verb ^ would seem to have the

initial we as a blend of the royal we and a true plural. In

the printed quarto, the modifying clause is altered to the

singular minde with concordant 1^, and it would seem the final reviser took the initial we only in its royal sense, surely a

perfectly defensible way in the context of the soliloquy. The

alteration of noble to heauenly is not easy to account for. Heauenly here could well intend the connotation of the spheres,

the sense being that the thoughts of Selimus are of such scope and extent as to be equalled to the heauens, and the accom­

plishment of these thoughts would insure his everlasting fame

among the stars. This is a common enough connotation of heauenly. My impression is however that this is not here the primary connotation of the adjective. Heauenly, I should

think, would here pertain to the abode of the blessed in a

sense derived from religion rather than from astrology or

astronomy. If this is here intended-(and if it is not, one

cannot see much gain in changing noble)-then perhaps the dramatic aim is to heighten the blasphemous associations.

In all probability the real connotation here of heauenly is more closely accordant with the immediately following five 163

lines In a philosophical sense than is noble. The mind clad

in noble thoughts might well be the mind occupied by the am­

bitions and projects of an aspiring soul. Since desire is

for that which is not, thoughts produced out of noble aspira­

tion could be far different from thoughts which are themselves heavenly; now, we know that this latter was precisely the deeply held view of Chapman, Raleigh, and presumably Harriot and Roydon. They all follow in the path of Giordano Bruno who had strenuously opposed the neo-platonism of Petrarch and the sonnet-convention and had insisted that the true fury or mania of the soul was the thirst for knowledge, not the light that lies in women's eyes. The forms of this knowledge, how­ ever, answered to the true heauenly nature of the mind and soul being the dark apprehensions of infinity. These forms were thus, characteristically, mathematical and aenigmatical.

By a school of night, this group meant essentially the read­ ing of nature in the book of mathematics rather than in the

"daylight" of Aristotelian empiricism. Thus, both Chapman and his opponents were Platonists. The import of this quarrel for literature is that Chapman like Bruno had dedi­ cated himself to providing new subject matter, new themes for the writer. Once one's mind was properly formed, then the proper reading of the highest expression of poetry, the epic, could be successfully carried out. For too long, ac­ cording to this line of thought, the Renaissance courtier 164

had followed and practised the emotional refinement and ele­

vation of the soul at the expense of a rigorous searching out

for the paths of knowledge. But only this last brings the

soul into harmonious relationship with its true source and home. Only this is truly an action. Roydon searching out the mathematical properties of the heavenly orbits, Raleigh searching out "my America, my newfoundland," these are the actions proper to the fullness of man, not the tedious and pointless languishing and sighing of a sonnet sequence. The succeeding lines so perfectly express this point, that I find it impossible to credit them to a dramatic writer contemporary with Cambyses, previous to 1574, a date which as we shall see, we have some evidence for taking as the terminus ad quem of the first version of Selimus. The general cast of thought would catch it much more in the decade 1585-1595 than any other time I can easily imagine. I shall continue with the corresponding lines until we reach a natural pause in the thought.

whose body doth a ritch(er) spirit here (l ) whose bodie doth a glorious spirit beare, (MSR)

which is not knowne but flyethe everywhere (l ) That hath no bounds, but flieth euery where (MSR)

why should we seeke to make that soule a slave (l ) Why should we seeke to make that soule a slaue, (MSR)

to which dame nature such large freedome gave (l ) To which dame Nature so large freedome gaue. (MSR)

I shall reserve comment for the moment on the variant 165

rich(er)-glorious and the implications of the quarto punctua­

tion. The most revealing variant in the passages above con­

cerns the which is not known-That hath no bounds reference.

Both adjective clauses modify spirit, and it is most important

to grasp the utterly differing philosophical import of these

clauses, if we are to do Justice to the two passages. The

first, which is not known, represents the quintessence of the doctrine of the soul of Renaissance heroic Platonism. This

is why knowledge and experience of the whole is our only means

of seeing an image of the soul. The soul itself is precisely that which is not an object among objects, no more than is

God. As Greek metaphysical realism had long taught, the soul through knowledge in a manner of speaking becomes all things.

To use contemporary terms, this is precisely what Jean Paul

Sartre means when he equates consciousness, the pour soi, with ^e Neant, the nothing. Being, I'etre, is that which is capable of taking the past passive participle known as a modifier. But of course this is what is per definitionem impossible in the case of the principle of knowing. The image of the winged soul is of course the standard Platonic image, and derives from the Phaedrus. But in the doctrine of

Eros the soul takes wings and flies because of the initial motive force of sexual desire. When this is properly sub­ limated the unnatural-natural state of the soul is made clear to itself and it seeks to rest in the sea of beauty. The 166

Renaissance conception of heroic science, and this underlies

Copernicus, da Vinci, and Kepler as it does Galileo and Bruno,

is that Eros is directly the motive force of learning. But

in order to answer to the "not knowne" from which it rises

and which it is seeking to fulfill, it must seek to encompass

the "All that can be knowne," This is the metaphysical princi­

ple of the "en-cyclopedic" learning of the Renaissance and

should make clear at a glance its profound difference from

the Spéculums and encyclopedias of the Medieval learning. I pass over here the secondary but clear involvement of medieval spéculums with Platonism. The important point is that the rich spirit is itself not knowne, nor can it be since it is the moving image of the unmoved mover, God its creator and pattern, but it flieth everywhere. The final couplet. Why should we seeke to make that soule a slave/to which dame nature such large freedom gave, again must be read in the

Longleat version if we are to see its real point. The quarto reviser has apparently not understood the philosophic import of the lines above, Ritch(er) having been altered to glorious.

Concerning this latter epithet, we shall have more to say in an instant; it would seem that the reviser is driven simply to restating in negative form, the content of the last clause which is given positively. Since the "glorious" spirit flieth everywhere, obviously it has no bounds. At once, the in­ tellectual depth of the passage is sacrificed, and suggests strongly to me, if not to others, that we are here dealing 167 with two radically different writers.

We turn now to the variant ritch(er)-glorious of our copy, and come upon matters which are curiously suggestive, although far from conclusive in their import. We know that

Robert Greene’s Orlando Purioso is connected in many ways with Locrine and with Selimus. The exact meaning of this con­ nection is still far from clear. The ingenuity of several of the best scholars of our century has been expanded in trying to grapple with this problem, but we are far from a definitive answer. Now in Orlando, Lines 246-260, Sacrepant, the villain, is soliloquizing about his ambitions and his dreams;

Sweet are the thoughts that smother from conceit: For when I come and set me downe to rest. My chaire presents a throne of Maiestie: And when I set my bonnet on my head, Methinkes I fit my forhead for a Orowne: And when I take my trunchion in my fist, A Scepter then comes tumbling in my thoughts; My dreames are princely, all of Diademes. Honor, - me thinkes the title is too base: (Line 9) Mightie, glorious, and excellent, - I, these, my glorious Genius, sound within my mouth; These please the eare, and with a sweet applause. Makes me in tearmes coequall with the Gods. Then these, Sacrepant, and none but these; And these, or else make hazard of they life.

Sir W. W. Greg says of Lines 9-13 of the above passage, "Even when we have reduced the third of these lines to its proper dimensions by eliminating the repetition of "glorious," the complete absence of sense should still forbid our charging

Greene, Orlando, op.cit., p. 230. 168

Greene with their composition."^^ Now I admire Sir Walter

just this side idolatry and I accept almost in toto his

brilliant analysis of the Orlando Quarto, but here I would

dissent. My immediate interest in these lines is of course

in connection with the Selimus change of ritch(er) to glorious in a dramatic context closely related in character and situa­

tion to the one above. Here we see glorious as one of the titles adequate to the conceits of Sacrepant where Honor is a title "too base." But, more to the point, glorious appears in the next line as the epithet to Genius, an exact counter­ part to spirit in the Selimus passage. As Greg correctly notes, glorious renders the line hypermetrical although not badly damaged rhythmically. Now, it is quite possible that the use of glorious here does not reflect the mind of Robert

Greene, since as we shall see later, Greg has constructed a brilliantly plausible account of the Orlando Quarto which we actually have as an abridgement of Greene's full play based upon a memorial reconstruction by certain actors, a Quarto incidentally of that annus mirabilis of printed Quartos, 159^.

But whoever is responsible for the final form of these lines certainly thought glorious a term superior to Honor and the appropriate epithet for the Genius of a proud, aspiring King, an epithet repeated and retained within the space of two lines even at the cost of metrical irregularity.

14Greg, Two Eliz., op. cit., p. 323. 169

I, too, with Sir Walter, am not willing to charge

Greene with the final form of these lines, but I should dis­

sent from the harshness of his Judgment regarding the sense

of the lines. They seem to me to be far from "a complete

absence of sense," and I offer the following expanded reading: "The title of a man of Honor is too base for me who have so vividly in my thoughts the conceits of royalty. I would con­

trast the title Honor with the title, Mightie Sacrepant, glorious Sacrepant, and excellent Sacrepant." I take "I" as an ear dictation for the obviously meant, "Aye," rendered plausible to the scribe on re-reading because of the per­ fectly good sense the line makes in either case. The scribe heard the sentence and wrote: I sound these titles, mightie, glorious, and excellent within my mouth, ray glorious Genius.

(We recall this is soliloquy and self-address is the form throughout.) The line dictated by the actor may well have been. Aye I these [subject] titles sound, [i.e., body out my conceipts in forms satisfactory to my hearing and imagina­ tion, ] within my mouth." These is now picked up for the rest of the passages and the figure of Epanaphora is used with an infinitely ingenious use of ellipsis to complete the figure. Remember, that these-(titles, understood) sound; in the next clause. These please the ear and with a sweet ap­ plause (a pretty paranomasia). The final couplet is such a labored figure that I am at a loss to know how Sir Walter 170

would account it nothing but the incorrectly remembered para­

phrase of Greene's original verse. Surely the density of the figure establishes its strong claim to authenticity. In ex­ panded form, I read the final couplet as; Then these titles,

Sacrepant, must be obtained, and none but these titles; and thou must either obtain these titles, Sacrepant, or else make

hazard of thy life. Now this is prozeugma with a vengeance,

and undoubtedly, when Greene had finished with this, he must

have taken great satisfaction that no mere "learned grammarian,"

trivial or otherwise, could produce a virtuoso piece equal to

one from a Master of Arts in both Universities. But I would

strongly argue that the elaborate set-piece of the figure which I have just analyzed offers strong support for my re­

construction and emendation of the line that obviously caused

Greg to dismiss the entire passage as having "a complete ab­

sence of sense."

Returning to our passage, we should note that one must reconstruct this philosophic sense of Renaissance

Platonism to control the exact implications of the Longleat passage. We must note that the Longleat lines say that,

"dame nature gave such large freedome to the soul"; the

Selimus reviser has, of course, "so large freedom." The difference in meaning is considerable. The Longleat lines mean a particularly kind (such) of freedom given by nature to the soul, even though the soul is borne by the body. It

is precisely a kind of freedom in which the body cannot 171 participate. Now of course dame nature would carry here in this philosophic context all the overtones of the atheist.

Epicure, Lucretian tradition with its classical hatred of religion: Alma genetrix as opposed to Tantum rellglo potult suadere malorum. Throughout the sixteenth and into the seven­ teenth century, the opposition between adherents of this school and that of a Divine, Christian Platonism, to which a man like Chapman would hold fast, raged without quarter, although in the nature of things much of this infighting had to be veiled and surreptitious. This was also the century of the Reformation and the Wars of Religion. But both tradi­ tions incorporated a version of Platonism; thus it is in the nature of. the soul to be free from the limitations of nature.

To assume otherwise is to place the soul at the service of nature, to make it a slave. Now this is especially the case with regard to conventional mores; these are, as indeed they were for Plato, the quintessential mark of the cave. Con­ ventional piety, conventional ethics: the attack upon these is unceasing. Taken in this context the "foolish names" of

"mother, father, brother and such lyke" are undoubtedly meant to carry "conventional" as opposed to "critical" ethical im­ plications. But as the close of this passage is going to make clear, philosophically no matter what the Platonism, no matter how heroic the flying spirit may be, the real truth is what the Epicureans had long been credited with 172 maintaining. We recall Dante's view of their teaching in the

Inferno. They taught that when the body died the soul died also. This was the standard Medieval and Renaissance view of

the sect of Epicure as far as the orthodox were concerned.

Now, of course, all of this fits very well with the require­ ments of dramatic decorum of Selimus. He acts upon the principle that father and brother are but foolish names as

far as any ethical duties are concerned. This atheist, epi­

cure line continues out to the end. I shall give the parallel passages and summarize my comments at the conclusion.

amongst us men there is some difference as affections termeth us be it good or ill (L) Amongst us men, there is some difference Of actions tearmed by us good or ill: (MSR)

It would seem reasonable to conjecture the reviser found the earlier lines, if indeed they were the same as or

closely identified with the Longleat passage, to be so obscure

in sense that a radical shift in syntax and meaning was car­ ried out. In this instance again we see a turning away from the dense precision of the Longleat lines to a more clear but less interesting Quarto version.

The succeeding couplet differs only in the substitu­ tion of the definite relative which, in the second line of Quarto copy for the relative that in the Longleat version.

as he that doth his father recompence differs from him which doth his father kill (L) As he that doth his father recoaipence Differs from him that doth his father kill. (MSR) 173

The sense of the preceding four lines is perfectly clear in both versions, but quite different. It is difficult to sup­ pose that the same author was responsible for both. The

Longleat version seems much more effective in thought and ex­ pression to me. There is a bold figure of personification whereby our affections terra or characterize us and thus mark recognized differences as far as the general run of men is concerned. This would seem to be far more in keeping with the illustration that follows in the succeeding couplets.

Clearly the last couplet refers to differences among men rather than among actions, although admittedly the distinc­ tion is rather tenuous. On the other hand, the reviser has shifted to a statement in general agreement with the passage as a whole; he emphasizes the purely conventional nature of ethical judgments. Nevertheless the psychological import of the Longleat lines seem to me to be more expressive in this instance than is the slightly awkward revision offered in the Quarto, and yet I think, think others what they will that paradice when death doth give them rest shall have as good a part even as the best (l )

And yet I thinke, thinke other what they will. That Parracides, when death hath gieun them rest, , . Shall haue as good a part as the rest. (MSR) These lines offer one of the most interesting vari­ ants found between the two texts. The Quarto reviser has made what is surely a correct emendation. Possibly it is 174

no emendation since the earlier version of the play manuscript

may have read parracides while the Longleat scribe simply

transposed the letters. It is curious to note that, except

for the final clause, "even as the best," paradice does offer

a somewhat intelligible reading. The Malone Society editor lists the reading as the rest, the final three words above,

as irregular or doubtful. One is still mystified, however,

to account for the change of the obviously required even as

the best, required both metrically and in sense, to the hope­

lessly ineffective as the rest. Had we enough comparative material the change of the emphatic doth give to the present perfect hath gieun might hold significance. We do not seem to possess enough known work of revision by Greene, Peele,

Marlowe and others to see the significance of such a change. and that is Just nothing for as I suppose in deathes void kingdom rules eternall night secure of evill (and) secure of foes (l )

And thats iust nothing, for as I suppose In deaths voyd kingdom raignes eternall night: Secure of euill, and secure of foes. (MSR) The rules-raignes variation would not seem to be significant for our inquiry. The syntax ofboth passages is, however, a bit obscure. The larger sense of the passage would seem to require secure of euill and secure of foes either to refer to paracides looking back or to the wicked soule-wicked man looking ahead. The pointing of the Quarto seems to suggest that we take Secure of euill et cetera with the lines following: 175

Where nothing doth the wicked man affright. No more than him that dies in doing right. (MSR)

It is difficult to make any conjecture from the

Longleat passage since no punctuation marks of any kind guide

our understanding of this passage. In any case it seems a

bit extreme to take the sense as being that eternall night

is secure of evil or foes, although this is a possible read­ ing. If we go forward, then the sense would seem to be that

nothing terrifies the wicked man, secure of euill and secure of foes, in death's voyd kingdom. The Longleat line, where

nothing doth the wycked soule affright, is here again more precise in diction than the Quarto version. The final line of the Quarto couplet given above does not appear in the Longleat version. We have our familiar alternatives. The

line is required to complete the prevailing stanzaic pattern.

Since this pattern is followed in both versions, we might

assume that the Longleat scribe simply left it out through

carelessness, reinforced by the fact that the line is not

essential to sense. If the Longleat scribe copies directly

from a version of the play previous to that of the last

Quarto reviser, then perhaps the line was in the play. On

the other hand, if the lines of the Longleat copy were trans­

ferred to the play Selimus, the final line could well have been added by the interpolator, probably earlier than the

time of final revision. The final lines available for comparison are: 176

Then since in death nothing doth us befall here while I live I will have a fetch at all. (L)

Then since In death nothing shall to us fall. Here while I Hue, H e haue a snatch at all. (MSR) In the doth us befall-shall to us fall variant, we see the familiar change from emphatic form to some other tense, usually perfect or future. In each case, to my ear and mind, the change weakens the force of the Longleat ver­ sion, but It would seem that the Quarto reviser took peculiar exception to any extensive use of the emphatic form, while clearly the Longleat author had a strong preference for It. I would argue that this Is some evidence for seeing two different writers Involved In these passages. One could, I suppose, maintain that one author came to change his mind about these forms. Given several years, I would admit some likelihood of this; In most cases, however, these matters are presumably almost unconscious parts of authorial psy­ chology. I think It would be most unusual to see such a pattern of change on the part of one and the same author.

The fetch-snatch variant might prove most Interesting In the context of a comparative study of these words drawn from a concordance of Raleigh, Greene, Marlowe, et al. Finally, we note the characteristic Quarto revision to a smoother metrical line on the norm of the standard Iambic pentameter. To sum up I suggest that we have very strong grounds for believing that the manuscript of Selimus existed In a 177 form earlier than that which we now have in the 1594 Quarto. The most reasonable explanation is that in its final form it bears the marks of the reviser of Locrine, probably in 1591-

1592, and thus, we can account for the network of borrowings as set out in our first chapter that link the two plays. As mentioned above, after I had completed my compara­ tive study of the Longleat lines and the Quarto passage, I discovered that M. Jean Jacquot had anticipated my discovery. In his article, "Ralegh*s 'Hellish Verses* and the 'Tragicall

Raigne of Selimus*", M. Jacquot gives a superb appreciation of the political and intellectual scene in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign. Since his general views on these matters are identical with mine, I can only register my as­ sent and pass on.

His analysis of the texts under discussion require more detailed comment.

The Longleat MS. seems to be the work of a copyist who did not fully understand what he was reading. On the whole, the Selimus text is much better: it gives a satisfactory reading of lines corrupt in the other text and does not deviate from the rhyme royal structure, while there are four lines missing in the MS. Lines 309 and 3^5 in Selimus are omitted in the MS. (after 1. 4 and 1. 57) and 11. 317-18 are contracted into one (1.14). Lines 345-6 are also replaced by a single line, 1. 39, expressing a rather different idea. Again 11. 18-19 in the MS. differ entirely from the corresponding lines (324-5) in the play. The reader will also notice other variants between the two texts, which cannot be explained by the negli­ gence or the ignorance of the transcriber. The Longleat MS. is not copied directly from the only known edition of Selimus. Yet this may be the ultimate source of the MS. Corruptions of the 178

text can be explained by successive transcriptions. And important variants may have been introduced in an effort to reconstitute the text from memory. On the other hand it is not impossible that the Longleat scribe and the author of the play had recourse to different versions of the same poem. In other words there are two ways of accounting for the relation of the MS, to the play. Either some enemy of Ralegh's lifted a passage spoken by a tyrant in a nearly for­ gotten play and gave it as the authentic expression of Ralegh's opinions, or some impudent dramatist ob­ tained the text of an unpublished poem of Sir Walter's and inserted it in the tragedy.

Selimus was published in 159^ and, in its final form, it cannot be anterior to 1591. A large part of the tragedy is in rhyme. Scenes where dramatic movement predominates are in blank verse. But blank verse and rhyme are often mixed in a way that sug­ gests the re-handling of an old play. The metrical structure of the "hellish verses" seems to indicate that they originally belonged to Selimus; the long speech in which they are found is written throughout in rhyme royal, and the same stanza is used in other soliloquies of a deliberative character.

In a note to this passage, M. Jacquot says, "J. C.

Collins, in his edition of the Plays and Poems of Robert

Greene (Oxford, 1905), vol.I, pp. 6l-6, shows that there is little ground for ascribing the play to that dramatist. The salient differences between my reading and M.

Jacquot's are I trust, sufficiently obvious as to require no extended comment. M. Jacquot would appear to have no settled idea of the text of the quarto or of its relationship to the

Longleat lines. His opening structures would make sense only if the Longleat copier was in fact copying the text of the

Jacquot, "Ralegh's 'Hellish Verses' and the 'Tragicall Raigne of Selimus,' Modern Language Review, XLVIII (January, 1953), PP. 4-5. l^Ibid. 179

159% Quarto. He then admits that the MS is not copied directly from this Quarto, but he maintains that the Quarto

"may be the ultimate source of the MS. Corruptions of the text can be explained by successive transcriptions. And im­ portant variants may have been introduced in eun effort to reconstitute the text from memory.Surely, here, if anywhere, Occam's razor is called for.

In considering other alternatives, that an enemy to Raleigh ascribed these lines to him but had in fact taken them from a version of Selimus other than that of the Quarto, or that an impudent dramatist, obtaining the text of an un­ published Raleigh poem, inserted it into the drama, M. Jacquot tacitly destroys the basis of his earlier criticism of the texts as a whole. Since he accepts Churton Collins' hope­ lessly uncritical dismissal of Greene from any part in Selimus, one should not expect M. Jacquot to be expert in bibliogra­ phical matters. What is surprising is to encounter this in­ difference in a study marked by unusually penetrating Judg­ ments about the men, the times, and the writing of these years. Baldwin Maxwell shrewdly observes that Jacquot fails to consider (a) that Raleigh may be the author of Selimus or

(b) that R.W. on the MS. may represent Robert Wilson.

Concerning the first of these. Maxwell says this is "an

l?Ibid. 180

1A explanation which none is likely to prefer.' But, surely, Raleigh, as I have suggested, may have been only a reviser of

a play dating in its original form from around 1570. Since,

in its present form, it was thoroughly revised again, probably

by Greene, objections to seeing Raleigh's hand here and there might not be so general as Professor Maxwell's inference would suggest.

Apart from this study, I am presently at work on the possible relationships of the dramas of Robert Wilson to the writings of Robert Greene and George Peele. This is part of my larger interest in the general history of the Queenk Men in the 1580's. Until now, I have found nothing of immediate interest in this area to the issues under scrutiny here.

^®Maxwell, op. cit., p. 209. CHAPTER V

SELIMUS: CONJECTURES AND INFERENCES

PROM QUARTO TO MANUSCRIPT

In attempting to reconstruct the probable nature of the manuscript that lay behind the printed quarto of Selimus, we shall begin by noting the contrast between the relation­ ship of the title-page of Selimus to the action of this play as compared to the remarkable discrepancies previously noted between the title page of the Locrine quarto and the action of this latter play. On A2 Recto of the copy of the quarto now In the British Museum and reprinted In facsimile In the Malone Society Reprint of the play In 1909, we find the following descriptive title: The first part of the Tragicall raigne of Selimus, sometime Emperour of the Turkes, and grandfather to him that now raigneth. Wherein Is showne how hee most unnaturally raised warres against his owne father Balazet, and preualllng therein. In the end caused hlme to be poysoned: Also with the murther- Ing of his two brethren. Corcut, and Acomat. As It was played by the Queenes Malestles Players.

It Is simply a fact that this title accurately describes the main action of the play vAille, as we have earlier seen, the title page of Locrine would seem to fit far more accurately Into a two part play which had been drastically telescoped Into one, the present title page of 181 182 the Locrine quarto being descriptive of the first part, not of the final play. Thus we might infer from this that no matter how extensive the revisions of the play may have been as to lines and borrowings, the original action and plot of the play retained its basic shape throughout these changes. That there were revisions, I think I have demonstrated con­ clusively by the comparative study of the Longleat lines and the related passage in the printed quarto of 1594.

Although the title page speaks of the First part of the Tragicall raigne of Selimus, the history of the Elizabethan stage provides no evidence for a second part. Chambers puts the matter thus: "The Conclusion, or epilogue, promises a second part, of which nothing is known

What the Conclusion or epilogue really says is not quite so clear in its inference as Chambers would make out. The 1594 Quarto prints the Conclusion in type that is twice the size of the running lines of the text; this suggests to me that the hand in the conclusion was significantly dif­ ferent from the earlier hand. I have not been able to establish any clearcut convention on type size in epilogues in the printing house of Thomas Creede. The Prologue to this quarto is in Italic type but the same size as that of the lines of dialogue. The very large type in the Conclu­ sion is throughout in Roman type even though it contains

^E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1923) iV, pi 461 183 proper names of persons and places which elsewhere appear In type contrasting to their Immediate surroundings. The lines are:

Thus haue we brought victorious Selimus, Unto the Crowne of great Arabia: Next shall you see him with triumphant sword, Dluldlng klngdomes Into equal1 shares. And glue them to their warlike followers. If this first part Gentles, do like you well. The second part, shall greater murthers tell. FINIS.

While one can see the Justification for reading the last of these lines as a promise of a second part. It Is not entirely clear to me that this Is unambiguously the Import of the earlier lines. I do not think we must take the first shall as purely future In Its force. You have seen

Selimus do these preceding things; next he divides kingdoms Into equal shares and gives them to warlike followers, and you shall see him do this. I would argue that one could Infer that a second part of Selimus was actually In existence, and that the promise refers to putting an already written play on the boards. If the audience likes the first part of the lamentable history. I do not say that the lines Insist upon this reading; I think they are ambiguous. I would hold only that such a reading cannot be ruled out of consi­ deration, and this possibility opens the way to some Interesting conjectures that arise from other evidence.

When we turn to the Prologue, A2 verso, of the

Quarto, we find lines which would fit a view of the play as 184 whole and entire in itself; nothing in the lines refers to any further action of Selimus, and in style and bibliographical inference, they would seem to have been composed for the version of the play in substantially the form we now have.

Prologue.

No fained toy nor forged Tragédie, Gentles we here present unto your view. But a most lamentable historié Which this last age acknowledgeth for true. Here shall you see the wicked sonne pursue His wretched father with remorselesse spight: And danted once his force againe renue, Poyson his father, kill his friends in fight. You shall behold him character in bloud. The image of an unplacable King: And like a sea or high resurging floud. All obstant lets, downe with his fury fling. Which if with patience of you shalbe heard. We haue the greatest part of our reward.

Exit. We need an exhaustive survey of all prologues and epilogues for the complete repertory of the Elizabethan stage, a survey which attempts to synthesize the literary, historical, and bibliographical import of these lines. We lack anything resembling this, and such a study is far beyond the aims of this work. Nevertheless one would like very much to know the referential meaning of "this last age." W. Bang, the editor for the Malone Society Reprint, tells us that, "The author of Selimus, whoever he may have been, seems to have drawn his material from the Turkish Chronicles of Paulus Jovius, but whether from the original or from a translation is at present uncertain."2 The Short Title Catalogue lists the

^Selimus, p. vi. 185 publications of most of Jovius• writings as appearing In

England from the 15^0's on. The connection of Jovius with this play and with Sir Walter Raleigh Is of course filled with the highest Interest. I have been unable, however, to obtain ac­ cess to any of Jovius* writings. The point here Is that a plausible reading of the lines of the prologue would mean that this last age or generation of twenty-five to forty years previous, read substantially the same account of Selimus* biography In the writings of a sober historian, and, thus,

"acknowledged It as true" However, If we take the word, age, as roughly synonymous with generation, then we might see the prologue as having been written In the 1570*s. This, In turn, would link It with the next Interesting feature of the title- page, one that has occasioned a great deal of scholarly con­ jecture. We recall that It says "Selimus, Emperour of the Tirkes, and grandfather to him that now ralgneth." Baldwin gives us a good summary of present critical thought on this matter. Like Locrine, Selimus also has been under strong suspicion, however, of being a refurbished older play. To begin with, the title page has a puzzling reference to "Selimus, sometime Emperour of the Turkes, and grandfather to him that now ralgneth." Now Selimus, the first, the subject of this tragedy succeeded his father Bajazet II In 1512. Then Sollman, the second, succeeded In 1520; Selimus, the second. In 1566; Amurath, the third. In 1574; and Mahomet In 1595 (1596). Since the play Selimus was printed In 1594, "him that now ralgneth" at the time of printing was Amurath, 1574-95, not the grandson, but the great-grandson of Selimus the first. In view however of the looseness with which such terms of kinship were then generally used, we cannot rely too heavily on this seeming Inconsistency. 186

But the fact of the title page does seem to refer to a time other than that of printing in 1594. To quote again, it reads, "Selimus, sometime Emperour of the Turkes, and grandfather to him that now raigneth." Selimus the first, the subject of the play, was grand­ father to Selimus the second, who should thus be "him that now raigneth." Seemingly this is the point to the title statement; i.e., Selimus, though not the one who is now reigning, but Selimus his grandfather. Now this second Selimus, grandson of the first come to the throne in 1566, and died April 28, 1574. Is the present play, then, a revision of an older play, which was written in 1566-1574? Collins says that "Selimus is plainly the recast of an earlier play," 'it seems perfectly clear that the play was originally one of the old-fashioned rhymed plays, and that it had been recast and interpolated with blank verse in consequence of the popularity of Marlowe's innovations." If the title page is correct, the old play would have been written between 1566 and April, 1574. The old Selimus would have been a companion play to Cambyses, printed in 1570. If so, Selimus would represent the earliest known English play on Turkish history. But how would a play printed in 1594 come to have a title page fitted to 1566-74? That it does seems highly improbable. But whether there was or was not an earlier form of the play, the present form of Selimus was written or revised not earlier than 1591. We may thus be reasonably certain that it fairly represents the structure of Queen's plays about 1592.3

Professor Baldwin has analyzed the greater part of this evidence with masterly brilliance. I strongly support his reading on the point of Selimus and "him that now raigneth."

Yet at the very end, he seems to me to cease conjecture at the very point that it might be most revealing, and finally, he would appear simply to darken counsel in his last inference. If we turn to A3 in the British Museum copy we find the

3Baldwin, o£. cit., pp. 226-227. 187 following title at the head of the beginning of the play:

"THE FIRST PART OP THE most tyrannical Tragédie and raigne of Selimus, Emperour of the Turkes, and grandfather to him that now raigneth. " Now this title would surely be part of the manuscript of "the booke of the play," the prompt- copy of the company. Although it is not identical with the title on the title page, I think it a reasonable conjecture to suppose that it furnished the foundation of the descriptive title on the title page. Now the prompt-copy, if we accept the theory of continuous revision (and in apite of Sir W. W.

Qreg,^ I do) in its original title, could well embody infor­ mation relevant to the first form of the play, a form in other words previous to 1574. In making up the title in

Creede's printing house, twenty years later, the scribe or compositor, drew upon the original title and failed to note the discrepancy occasioned by the time reference of the prompt-copy manuscript. I am at a loss to know what Professor Baldwin means by his statement, "But how would a play printed in 1594 come to have a title page fitted to

1566-74? That it does seems highly improbable." Finally, on the evidence presented, I fail to see the slightest reason why we should be reasonably certain that Selimus fairly represents the structure of Queen’s plays about

1592." Since we are certain that the company had an earlier

4oreg, Ed. Prob., 0£. cit., p. 42. 188

version of the play, and since we are certain that there was

extensive revision around 1592, I do not see how we can take the title page information, "As it was played by the Queenes

Maiesties Players." at anything more than its face value.

The confused and confusing history of the Queens Company from 1591 to its disappearance should put us on our guard against any such certainty as Professor Baldwin refers to. There are no surviving records of any performance of the play.

The 1594 Quarto gives us no act or scene divisions, and, as we have seen, since Thomas Creede would seem to be quite indifferent in this matter so far as one may Judge from the plays printed by him in this decade, we may reasonably infer that there were no act or scene divisions in the manuscript. Our greatest interest in studying the stage directions in the play is to determine whether or not the last state of the manuscript had been prepared for actual stage performance prior to its acquisition by Thomas Creede for publication. The evidence does not, it seems to me, allow us to be certain on the matter, but the directions themselves are full of interest. Jewkes in a very superfi­ cial and perfunctory notice of these matters in the play notes that The stage directions sound like those of Alphonsus. So we find "Suppose the Temple of Mahomet" Kl. éÔ25) and,, "Acomat must read a letter, and then reading it say:: (1 . 1074). There is no indisputable evidence of the playhouse, however, unless it be in the abundance 189

of ”Ala^" (11, 579, 660, 116?, 1202). "Sound within" (11, 164, 210) and "Music within" (l. 870). Also, at line 2400, we find "Alarum, beats them off the walls. Alarum," which looks very much like a prompter's repetition. While the play does not offer any conclusive evidence of having been a prompt-book, it bears more traces of preparation for performance than does Alphonsus.^

As a matter of fact, Jewkes does the writer of the second stage

direction a disservice. I agree that the direction is literary, descriptive, hence, probably authorial. This may well have been the direction of the final reviser, who again, may well have been Robert Greene. But even though Greene's hand was none of the best, he surely did not write the absurd direction credited to him above: "Acomat must read a letter, and then reading it say." The accurate direction is: "Acomat must read a letter, and then renting it say." That this is no printer's mistake is established by the immediately following lines: "Thus will I rend the crowne from off thy head,/

False hearted and injurious Baiazet, As our survey will show, the overwhelming inference from the majority of the stage directions in the quarto point to authorial origin. They are remarkably literary and descriptive. Nevertheless there are very interesting features that may not have been sufficiently remarked upon by previous students of the play. I shall confine my comments on those

5Jewkes, o£. cit., p. 120.

^Selimus, Lines 1075-1076. 190

directions that have some unusual feature about them, but I

will offer my commentary according to the appearance of the directions In the play.

The play opens with the direction: "Enter Baiazet Emperour of Turkle, Mustaffa, Chersely, and the

lannusarles. Baiazet.

Leaue me my Lord untlll I call you foorth. For I am heaule and disconsolate. Exeunt all but Baiazet." Baiazet then continues an opening speech of exposi­

tion for one hundred and fourteen lines, ending with a couplet:

But what must be, cannot chuse but be done. Come Bassaes enter, Baiazet hab done. Enters again.

Now the concluding couplet Is enough to arouse suspicion that here Is a seam through which the patching may be seen. I would hold that this Impression Is strengthened when we consider the overall pattern of the verse In the entire

soliloquy. With the exception of the opening two lines, all

the rest of the speech Is In Ottava rlma. This absolutely unbroken form persisting through 114 lines, gives us leave

to suspect the reviser's hand In the opening lines and first

and second stage directions when we see this pattern broken.

The first eight lines are: Leaue me My Lords untill I call you foorth. For I am heaule and disconsolate. So Baiazet, now thou remalnst alone. Unrip the thoughts that harbour In thy brest. 191

And eate thee up, for arbiter heres none, % a t may dlscrle the cause of thy unrest, Unlesse these walles thy secret thoughts declare. And Princes walles they say, unfaithful are.

Now the final couplet of the speech, which itself is the

couplet of an ottava rima, acquires a very strong flavor

of the same reviser's hand that altered the opening two

lines from the rhyme scheme that would have made the first

eight lines an ottava rima. In the rather confusing

direction, "Enters againe," for the re-entrance of the Pashas, I see the signs of authorial hand, a reviser, fully aware of

the scene, but certainly not a play-house prompter. We have earlier considered some reasons why the first version of the play may have appeared between 1566-74.

I would call attention to line 194-205 as offering some

Justification for seeing parts of the first draft of the play surviving through what I would be willing to conjecture were at least three separate stages of composition and revision. Baiazet speaks : In loue, Mustaffa, Selimus in loue? If he be. Lording, tis not Ladies loue. But loue of rule, and kingly soueraigntie. For wherefore should he feare t'aske my consent? Trustie Mustaffa, if he had feard me. He neuer would haue lou'd mine enemie. But this his marriage with the Tartars daughter. Is but the prologue to his crueltie. And quickly shall we haue the Tragédie. Which though he act with meditated brauerie. The world will neuer giue him plauditie. To me, this has the ring of dramatic verse "before the Flood," a stamp from the age of Cambyses, and seems 192

certainly earlier than either the dramatic speeches marked

by Ottava rima and rhyme royal or the blank verse of what I take as the final stage of revision.

Line 511 and following show an amusing misreading on the part of the printer. Baiazet is speaking and in the

course of his speech he addresses his councilor, Cherseoli, with these lines:

Cherseoli, Gk> and prouide a gift/ A royall present for my Selimus,

The printer takes Cherseoli as the speaker, abbreviates and

italicizes the name, and the line appears:

Cherseo. Go and prouide a gift,/ A royall present for my Selimus, We have had many interesting discussions of stage directions in Globe plays seeking to use entrances as a means of determining the vexed question of the number of doors on Elizabethan stages. The question has turned on evidence clearly establishing more than two doors. ISie stage direction at Line 657 Is, alas, as tantalizingly elusive in this regard, as are so many other instances. The direction reads : Alarum, Mustaffa beate Selimus in, then Ottrante and Cherseoli enter at diuerse doores.

Curiously enough, this direction smacks at least as much of the play-house and the prompter as it does of the author. The Alarum, the imperative rather than indica­ tive verb forms raise here the possibility of play-house 193 notation. But what is the import of diuerse in this regard?

Does it mean simply different? If so, are we to take dif­ ferent as applying to the door through which Mustaffa drives

Selimus off the stage, or are we to see the stage as con­ taining the usual two doors, Mustaffa driving Selimus through one of them, and diuerse referring simply to the fact that Cherseoli comes through a door different from the one through which Ottrante enters? No direction seems to be given as to which one will use the door through which Mustaffa and Selimus have just passed? As is so often the case, the

Elizabethan stage documents are ambiguous on just those points which we most seek to bring to clear resolution. It is difficult to assess the import, if any, of the directions at Line 672. They read:

They fight. He killeth Cherseoli, and flieth. Alarum, enter Selimus. Line 952 has the direction, "Sound within. A Messenger enter, Baiazet awaketh." Only in these two directions do we have the-eth form for the third person singular. We might ask if this form points to the retention in the manuscript of stage directions from earlier versions of the play, but I see nothing in the immediately surrounding verse that would enable us to resolve this inquiry. The imperative forms accompanying the-eth indicatives in each case make one suspect a later hand adding to the directions, this later 194 hand possibly being that of the prompter, or as we would refer to him later, the stage director.

A direction such as that at Line 714, Exit one with

Ottrante, is held by modern scholars to be a strong indica­ tion of authorial origin because of its indeterminancy.

This seems reasonable, although I fail to see why a prompter would never make such a note in the booke of the play.

The next passage of interest as regards copy begins with continuing dialogue of Baiazet at Line 86l. Baiazet has begun this speech at Line 831 in stanzaic pattern ababcc.

This stanzaic pattern begins to dissolve at Line 849 and raises the suspicion of a revising hand. But at Line 86I the passage set out below occurs:

My heart is heauie, and I needs must sleepe. Bassaes withdraw yourselues from me awile. That I may rest ray ouerburdned soule. They stand aside while the curtins are drawne. Eunuchs plaie me some musicke while I sleepe. Musicke within. I must confess it is not easy for me to follow the form of these lines. That stage direction concerning the curtains would appear to be descriptive, hence authorial.

But if so, does the writer intend the last line given Baiazet to be spoken from behind the curtain, or does he leave the actor free to speak it immediately before or during the drawing of the curtain and Just before the music begins offstage? Stage directions for hundreds of lines bear very strong marks of authorial origin. For instance, a 195

direction such as the following at Line 1120 is held to be the very hallmark of this kind.

Enter the yoong Prince Mahomet, the Belierbey of Natolia, and one or two souldiers.

At this point in the play, something of the strength of some Elizabethan stages may be seen in stage properties.

At Line 1165 Acomat and his party are on the ground and

Prince Mahomet and his party appear on (or over?) the

walles. They parley, and, after a bitter dispute, the stage

directions leave us with a clear picture. Line 1200 Alarum.

"Scale the walles. Enter Acomat, Visir and Regan, with Mahomet." They must literally go up after them, disappear

over the top, and come in through one of the stage level

entrances. The next few hundred lines of the play contain stage directions for business that is unparalleled in the Elizabethan theater for "Senecan" horror. Not even Titus Andronicus or Lear can surpass it. Each gruesome business is laboriously spelled out in stage directions. Their general form would

seem to point to authorial origin, but I hesitate to credit

Robert Greene or any known author with such a catalogue of

Madame Tussaud's exhibits. In any case one should not

single out Titus Andronicus as being unique in its frightfulness. At Line 1568, however, we encounter a direction which to my mind moves away from authorial origin and 196

#ugge#t# pl*y-hou#e provtnanot. li reading a letter from Baiaset and is addressing himself in his speeeh. Read it againe, perehange thou doest mistake , (Reade, Of heer*s Nustaffas signet set thereto* the peremptory form* the position in the page* and the duplioa- tion of the olear sense of the line would suggest to me a prompter's notation rather than an author's olarifieatlon. During the next five hundred lines X do not eneounter any dtreotlona that oould not he those of the author; none* that is* that olearly establish play-house provenanoe, the seene beginning at Line 1995, however* presents a feature not easily brought within this fore-mentioned oategory. The stage direotion* descriptive and authorial reads i Enter Sellmus* Sinam-bassa* the oourses of Nustaffa and Aga* with funevall oompe* Nttstaffa* and the Zanisariea, phe first Nustaffa ia Obviously a oomfuaiem with Baiaset* but there is no way of knowing whether this muddle is a printer's error or is to be found in the printer's Seli. Why thus must Selim blind his subjeot eies* And stralne his owne to weep for Baiaset, They will not dreame X made him away* When thus they see me wiW% religious pompe, fb oelebrate his tom-blaoke mortarie, (To himselfe. And though my heart east in an iron mould* damnot amdLt the smallest draame of griefe* Tot that X may be thought to loue him well. Xle moume in shew* though X reiouoe indeed. To the oourses. Thus after he hath fiue long ages liu'd* The saered fhoenix of Arabia* Loadath his wings with pretieus parfumes* And on tha altar of tha golden sunme* Offers himselfe a gratefull saorifioe. Long didst thou iiua phant Baiaset* A faare unto they greatest enemies* 197

And now that death the conquerour of Kings, Dislodged hath thy neuer dying soule, To flee unto the heauens from whence she came. And leaue her fralle, earth paulllon, Thy;' bodle In this auntlent monumet. Where our great predecessours sleep In rest: Suppose the Temple of Mahomet. Thy wofull sonne Sellmus thus doth place. Now the directions, "To the courses" and "Suppose the Temple

of Mahomet," both In form and position on the page suggest authorial origin. What the Import of the direction,

"Suppose the Temple of Mahomet," might be, I do not easily see. I should think one could argue that this points not

only to authorial origin but to a purely literary, non-

dramatlc direction. Intended for the aid of a reader and

hencesuggesting the preparation of copy for the publisher. We note however, that marked off on the right-hand margin

and not occupying a separate and continuous line In the text Is the direction "(To himselfe." Of course, the author, going back over his copy may have wished to assist the actor or the reader by bringing the first lines Into clear relation­ ship with the lines addressed to the dead bodies. On the

other hand, such a notation could well be a prompter's mark.

Intending to signal to himself and to the actor the necessity of a quite different blocking for this passage from the one that Is Immediately following. This possibility of seeing the play-house notations of a prompter entered on the extreme right hand margin of the prompt-copy, because there was no room left between the 198

lines for stage directions Is, I think, bolstered by the following lines:

Lines 2173-74 Sellm farewell: thou God of Christians, Receive my dying soule Into thy hands. (Strangles him. Line 2233 And banish hence these melancholy thoughts. (Exeunt. Line 2242 Amu. Here messenger take this for thy reward. (Exit mess.

Line 2248 Ailnda. I to Persia. (Exeunt.

Line 2258 Hall go fetch Mustaffa and his wife. (Exit Hall.

And so, as we move to an overall reconstruction of the history of the text of Locrlne and Its relationship to

Sellmus In manuscript and In print, we are probably justified

In thinking that Thomas Creede came Into possession of the final reviser's fair copy marked for performance after the revision. In other words, the original or transcript of the prompt-book of Sellmus lies behind the Creede Quarto. CHAPTER VI

LOCRINE; A RECONSTRUCTED HISTORY OP LOCRINE; FOUL PAPERS TO QUARTO AND ITS CONNECTIONS WITH SELIMUS

We must attempt now to draw together the general pattern of fact. Inference, and conjecture into some sort of coherent account. What then is the probable history of our two plays that seems to emerge from the present state of our knowledge? First of all, one must emphasize the highly speculative character of any such history. Most of it must be guesswork; our only aim is to make the guessing do the greatest amount of justice possible to the known facts. % e second point is that a principal aim of a conjectural historical pattern of the kind we shall now attempt is to open up new areas for research. Research that is not governed by some such series of questions tends to dissipate itself in irrelevant byways. Sometime prior to 1586, Charles Tylney, cousin to

Sir George Buc and close kinsman to Sir Edmund Tylney,

Master of the Revels, wrote what probably was a two part tragedy called Estrild. It is quite possible that the first part was entitled Locrine, hence the name for the final revised and abridged version, and the second and

199 200 final part, Estrild, as we are told by Sir George Buc's note. Since the major revision and abridgment of Locrine took place probably In the winter of 1591-92, we ought to be able to distinguish with relative ease and certainty, dramatic verse separated by these six or seven years, since these are precisely the years that saw the most swift and decisive change In dramatic verse In our literature. Unfortunately, the major reviser was a close reader of and extensive borrower from Edmund Spenser of the Complaints and the Faerie Queene. Infatuation with archaic diction and more especially archaic syntax reached Its height In just these years. The nicest possible aesthetic judgment Is therefore called upon; certainty Is almost Impossible.

An alternative line of study might however prove most revealing. As Is well known, the fons et orlgo of the legendary history of England was Geoffrey of Monmouth's

Hlstorla Regum Brlttanlae. Two sections of the Hlstorla are especially deeply Interwoven with the literature of sixteenth century England, the post-Roman matter of Arthur and the pre-Roman and Roman accounts of the legendary kings and queens. Extended studies of the use of these bodies of material are widely available. There exists, however, some grounds for thinking that much of this material had. In addition to Its Intrinsic antiquarian and picturesque literary Interest, a further Interest for sixteenth century writers, basically allegorical. Since It Is the fashion In 201

our century and Indeed since Coleridge for critics and

scholars to "foam at the mouth and run mad" If one suggests

allegory In the literature of the sixteenth century or the

seventeenth. It Is peculiarly difficult to Investigate any

problem of allegory In a calm and relatively objective

atmosphere. Although I am confident no major advance In

this area can be made until we have a thorough survey of

the history of polemic In the sixteenth century In England,

the exeimple Immediately before us Is at least suggestive.

Here Is a drama dealing with this legendary history of

Brittains and the Hunnlsh (German) Invasions. Such hints

as survive of the original two-part play would seem to

suggest a political crisis Involving the British crown, a

crisis coming about because of the Infatuation of a British king with a foreign princess. Civil war ensues and the loyal and true British forces and leaders rallying around

the wronged wife and queen Guendolln put down by war this outrageous state of affairs. Now the author of such a play was executed In 1586 for alleged conspiracy In a Catholic plot against the government. The Involvement of the Tudor dynasty In' the Reformation In England raises at least the

suspicion of more being meant than meets the ear. Inci­ dentally, we have almost conclusive evidence that Milton used this same material for exactly opposite allegorical purposes some fifty years later In Comus. What we need of course Is not another survey of the appearance of this 202

material in the literature of the age, but rather a syste­ matic investigation of the use of the material in reflecting

contemporary values and allegiances of the writers who used

it. The Birth of Merlin, Lear and Cymbeline might take on

new interest if studied in this light.

We have the interesting possibility that Tylney wrote the play originally for the Queen's company. This would seem a peculiarly insolent and dangerous line of action if our conjectures above have any plausibility, but he may have thought that the allegorical cast would provide

sufficient cover. On the other hand, if this is not the

case, then we have strong grounds for thinking that his manuscript came into the possession of the Company after his death. This frankly has greater plausibility since there is no recorded performance of the play; a reasonable explanation would be that after Tylney's execution the purport of the play was seen and the company feared to present it without drastic alteration.

As we have seen. Professor T, W. Baldwin has opened up fascinating perspectives on the relationship of

Peele, Greene, Marlowe and Kyd to the London dramatic compauiies through 1592. Even more detailed research and réévaluation needs to be done in this area, particularly as regards Robert Greene. I find myself in agreement with

Professor Baldwin, Tucker Brooke, and Baldwin Maxwell in seeing Robert Greene as the major hand in revisions of 203

Locrine after 1590. At present we have fairly good studies

of Greene's characteristics In borrowing first extensively

from himself and secondly from his current readings. His

facility In "paltering up something In prose" for his

gentlemen readers owes a good deal to this Inveterate habit; obviously, however. It was not looked on with any great dis­ favor. Everyone who could did the same thing. The presence of Spenser both from the Complaints and the Paerle Queene are thus easily accounted for by Greene's known reading of these works after 1590. If he read them, he certainly pillaged them for everything they were worth. The collabo­ ration of Greene with Thomas Lodge In works of doubtful or unknown authorship during these years has not In my opinion been given close enough study. The same could be said for

Greene and Nash. However, much careful and valuable work has been done with regard to sources, parallels, borrowings of lines and passages. The more Important lines of Inquiry seem to me to be those connected with the changing fortunes, needs, and structure of the London dramatic companies from

1590-1594, particularly the tangled and obscure history of the Queen's.

Let us return to the Tylney manuscript. How did the Queen's Company get hold of It? We saw that we have grounds for thinking that they had a connection with another great courtier In the 1580's, none other than Sir

Walter Raleigh. This raises the possibility that the 204 companies were much more Involved with the personal and political interests and factions of the great court parties than most students of the dreuna have been willing to admit.

Perhaps this is the source of the strength and power of the companies; the pounds and shillings from the populace no doubt were of great interest to the managers and the actors, but were not so central to the drama's purpose as we may have thought. Whatever the case may be, and we know precious little about these crucial matters, it would seem that in the years 1588-92, the Queen's Men engaged Robert

Greene to provide them with new plays and to refurbish old plays. But for what purpose? The work of Sir. W, W, Greg on the quarto of Orlando Purioso and Alleyn manuscript, the "part” and the "plot” of Orlando, led him to the conviction that in the quarto we might have a carefully prepared abridge­ ment of Greene's original play which appears in part in the

Alleyn manuscript. The abridgement presumably was prepared for a tour through the provinces. Thus, instead of pur­ suing the line suggested above, the need of the Queen's

Men to have Greene make drastic alterations in Locrine because of dangerous matter in Tylney's version, perhaps the fundamental requirement was in line with a series of dramatic abridgements prepared for the swing through the provinces. A further implication of this line of inquiry might reveal that these abridged copies were precisely the copies that in the main found their way into the printer's 205

hands in 1593-95 and thus produced the remarkable number of plays in print that we have from these years. A de­

tailed study of all plays suspected of being abridged in their printed form from 158O-I6IO might throw much more

light on this problem. We have brilliant detailed investi­ gations of single plays and quartos; we lack any overall

theory for testing on a large scale.

In like manner, we do not have any large area of

agreement concerning the provenance of play copy and its history during these years. When an old play was given to a newly engaged author for revision or abridgement, what was the history of its physical form? Some critics think that it was usual to give such an author the original foul papers of the play, when an abridgement was desired for

small-troupe, country touring and the full play was to be kept on the boards in London. For reasons which I will make clear later I cannot be brought to believe that such is the case with Selimus, Greg does seem to establish some such possibility for Greene's Orlando Purioso. Locrine might well be in this category. We come here upon the dispute as to the existence of continuous copy text; Pollard and Dover Wilson believe in it; Greg thinks it a figment of editorial imagination,

I should say that most of my study would tend to support the probability that an original manuscript, a fair copy, of Tylney's play served as the working base for 206

Greene's revision and abridgement. I take the inference that Tylney's copy was carefully prepared from the fact

that Sir George Buc tells us that he had prepared dumb

shewes for it. Tylney would be unlikely to pass about

foul papers in aristocratic circles of his friends and kinsmen. Greene, receiving the "booke of the play" from

the Queen's Men or some part of their organization in 1591, a year in their history which is particularly difficult to

unravel, either marks through the "booke" for extensive

deletions and insertions returning the whole business to

the company where the amanuensis would prepare the new

plots and a fair prompt copy, or, as may have happened, he

didn't return them at all. His work on Selimus and Locrine may both have been among his papers at his death in

September 1592 and a friend such as Lodge in 1593 could have touched them up here and there and sold them to Creede

some time prior to 1594. Here of course lies the crucial matter of determining the presence or absence of prompter's hand, of playhouse provenance, in the manuscript lying immediately behind the printer's copy. Both in Selimus and in Locrine we have seen evidence that established this as a possibility; therefore, it seems more probable that

Greene returned the plays to whatever persons from the

Queen's Men he was in touch with, and the plays were readied for some kind of performance. No record of such a perform­ ance exists. 207

All of the above would take In the facts and chronology so ably set forth Baldwin. A note is due on his final comment:

But the final speech of Locrine refers to "that renowned mayd. That eight and thlrtle years the scepter swayd." Queen Elizabeth's thirty-eight regnal year began on November 17> 1595, and ended November 16, 1596. The play was entered S. R. July 20, 1594, and printed In 1595 as "Newly set foorth, ouerseene and corrected, by W. S." Part of the overseeing and correcting presumably In­ cluded the regnal line, and If so was later than November 17, 1595, in order to conform more nearly to the date of publication.^

I find this completely reasonable. An "editor" In the printer's shop simply entered the correct year In Ate's speech. Now we know from the pattern of the Spenser bor­ rowings and from that fact that Sir George Buc did not recognize the present dumb shewes as being part of the original copy that Greene, If he Is the reviser. Is responsible for Ate's speeches. The Epilogue from which the above quotation Is taken Is as follows:

Lo here the end of lawlesse trecherle. Of usurpation and ambitious pride. And they that for their prluate ^ours dare Turmolle our land, and see their”brolies abroach. Let them be warned by these premisses. And as a woman was the onely cause That clulll discord was then stirred up. So let us pray for that renowned mayd. That eight and thlrtle yeares the scepter swayd. In quiet peace and sweet fellcltle. And euery wight that seekes her graces smart, would that this sword wer pierced In his hart. (Exit.)

^Baldwin, 0£. cit., pp. 218-219. 208

I should find It reasonable to suppose that the speedcer of the Epilogue made the proper changes as required each year.

I surmise that about the same time the Queen's Men

made their copy of Locrine available to Greene for revision

and abridgement, they presented him with another play In

their repertoire that posed a quite different series of problems. This play was Sellmus. The original draft of

the play may well have been put down prior to 1572. Very

possibly It was, even at that date. In two parts. But by

far the most extensive revision of the play. If Indeed It

existed In this earlier form, occurred probably In the

middle 1580's. I think It possible to entertain the con­

jecture that the older play may well have caught the fancy of Sir Walter Raleigh because of Its historic Interest,

"which this last age acknowledgeth for true," and Raleigh

Interested himself In the philosophic and psychological developments which the action provided. The length of the

speeches, the elaborate stanzalc pattern, point to a re­

viser whose primary Interest was poetic rather than

dramatic. At least, a careful reading of Raleigh's verse

has not persuaded me that he could not have been the principal hand In revising the first part of an old Turkish play from the age of Cambyses. But an even more Interesting conjecture opens out; I think It possible to entertain the

conjecture that Marlowe may well have seen a performance or

read the manuscript of such a play and herein gained 209

Important suggestions for his trail-blazing path in

Tamburlaine. Of course with Marlowe's powerful dramatic sense and his determination to "set the end of English

scollarism in a blank verse," he would have considered the general cast of Selimus marred by the "jigging vein of

rhyming mother wits." I cannot believe that the philosophic

and psychological interest of the theme would have failed to draw his attention strongly. Now, in its quarto version, I

envisage something of an ironic twist. As we shall see

later there are undoubtedly strong parallels between Selimus

and Tamburlaine. I am inclined to see in this the hand of

Greene once more. Greene, I feel, was deliberately attempting to challenge comparison with Tamburlaine in his revision of

Selimus. There are grounds for believing he attempted this in Alphonsus of Aragon, if indeed that play is his. I should be inclined to give to Greene and (perhaps) Lodge the major share of the Corcut-Christian theme brought in so prominently at the end of the play. A careful study of the sources of Selimus might throw additional light on this matter; in spite of my efforts to get at these sources in the Yale Library, I have as yet been unable to consult

Paulus Jovius. Perhaps one might suggest that lines and echoes in common between Selimus and Tamburlaine could have come about from Marlowe himself having been asked to revise the old Selimus and his having done so until he was discouraged 210 by the intractability of the general verse form. This seems to me inherently implausible, since Marlowe took an

M. A. from Cambridge in 1587 and 2 Tamburlaine seems to have been performed by the Admiral's Men just before

November 16, 1587.^ There just doesn't seem to have been time for Marlowe to have worked over extensively an old play for the Queen's and have written Tamburlaine I and 2 for the Admiral's. But we know so little of that most , unusual cobbler's son from Canterbury that certainty is out of the question.

The title page of the quarto tells us that we have the play "as it was played by the Queens Maiesties Players."

I think this could have applied equally as well to the version prior to Greene's revision as afterwards. On the whole, I think the weight of the evidence would support the inference that the version prior to a 1591 revision was here referred to. Finally it would appear, that sometime in 1593-94 the two manuscripts came into the hands of Thomas Creede.

Since the final remnant of the Queen's Men seem to have broke for good in 1594 - they are never heard of again, either in the provincial records or in combination with existing companies - a reasonable conjecture would see the selling of their manuscripts in this year in order that

^Baldwin, o£. cit., p. 140. 211

final accounts might be settled among the shareholders and members of the company.

The framework of this entire picture 23 designedly

one of speculation, of conjecture and inference. I think,

however, that some such conjectural reconstruction is necessary in order to deal in any effective way with

important considerations brought forth in earlier studies.

Since the sketching out of a possible history of the two plays is so much a matter of conjecture, it would be absurd to apply it critically to every study made of either play. My intention is to use it in a different way; not so much to test its truth but to demonstrate the way in which the absence of any carefully thought out bibliographical theory, especially in the case of anonymous Elizabethan drama, makes so many other ways of studying the evidence of the plays yield pervasive contradictions.

In 1906, Mr. Charles Crawford published his study of "Edmund Spenser, Locrine, and Selimus." From that time to this, general critical evaluation has tended to follow

Tucker Brooke's caustic appraisal.

As for Mr. Crawford's fine-spun theory that Selimus, with its multiplex heroes, disjointed plot, frequent rhyme, and total absence of any strikingly original situation or poetry, is the production of Christopher Marlowe, it is assuredly not unjust to pronounce the suggestion worthy of keeping company in the limbo of rash and unbal­ anced criticism with Mr. Simpson's arguments in defence of Shakespeare's authorship of Pair Em, and with that egregious sentence of Schlegel which declares that Cromwell and Oldcastle 212

deserve to be classed among his best and maturest works.3

Although I delight In Tucker Brooke's additions to the stuffed owl anthology of criticism, one's delight Is tempered by the recognition that Sellmus does not seem to have more multiplex heroes than does Tamburlaine; Its plot

Is not terribly disjointed (cf. Locrine), and, with the exception of Marlowe's recognized work, where would one find dramatic poetry of the power of the first long soliloquy of Sellmus? Kyd's verse Is better adapted to the overall ends of drama, but surely Kyd never wrote any passage of comparable power and fire. Since I agree Independently with the major part of

Tucker Brooke's judgments about probable authorship or re­ vision, perhaps It would not be amiss to call attention to a nod or two of the last editor of Locrine In our century. In his (Pleay) History of the Stage he gives the play wholly to Peele; In the Shakespeare Manual (286) he assigns It to Charles Tllney, but believes that It was revised by.Peele. There is nothing to support either theory.^ In his note on the "eight and thlrtle yeares" spoken by

Ate In the Epilogue, Tucker Brooke seeks to enlighten us as follows ; Elizabeth entered upon the thirty-eighth year of her reign In November, 1595, the year In which Locrine was published. As the tragedy was regis­ tered, however, on July 20, 1594, we must assume

3Brooke, 0£. cit., p.xlx.

^Ibld. 213

either that the poet exaggerated the length of the reign by a couple of years or, as is more probable, that these concluding lines were added for some court performance in 1595.^

These judgments are, in their way, at least a minor ad­ dition to the stuffed owl.

Mr, Crawford, in his study referred to above, concludes :

I claim that Selimus is by Christopher Marlowe, and not by Robert Greene; and I humbly suggest that it is Marlowe's first play, and was im- , mediately followed by The First Part of Tamburlaine.° Crawford considers the claim of Robert Greene.

Greene might have written, and very possibly did write, Locrine, and a strong case could be made out for him as its author; but he is impossible as the author of Selimus. Compared with his work generally, but especially with his plays, the style of Selimus is severe simplicity itself; and its sustained power and vigorous phrasing are things which Greene in his wildest dreams could never hope to aspire to or even imitate. Besides, Greene was not a prose­ lytizing atheist who vented his opinions in all companies, nor was he a follower of Machiavelli. Indeed, he had such an aversion to Marlowe's opin­ ions that he went out of his way to make the fact publicly known. In The Groatsworth of Wit Greene admonishes Marlowe to abandon atheism and to guide his life and his thoughts by other and better precepts than those of "pestilent Machivilian policie." It is quite clear from his writings that Greene was not an atheist of the aggressive type that Marlowe was, and that his argumentative powers were not equal to the composition of the singularly powerful plea against religion made by Selimus.'

We may easily admit that Mr. Crawford's textual analysis in detail rests upon an essentially uncritical

5Ibid., p. 422.

^Crawford, 0£. cit., p. 99. ^Crawford, o£. cit.. pp. 85-86. 214

use of parallel passages and upon a naive grasp of biblio­ graphical matters; he has been damned for half a century

for these faults. Yet, beyond these, I would argue that

he has the root of the matter of criticism within him. He

read the texts for meaning, and imagined that writers, even dramatists, had something to say. I, too, think that

Robert Greene could not have written the great soliloquy

against religion; I hope I have produced evidence which suggests that he did not. Thus, Crawford is vindicated in

one of his major critical intuitions. Crawford's sensitivity

to meaning deserts him, however, in a curious way in Selimus. He fails to see the crucial figures of Corcut and of

Bullithrumble, which introduce a Christian frame of refer­

ence as a standard of judgment on and condemnation of the

actions of Selimus at the close of the play. All one has to do to see how differently this can be handled is to

attend closely to the tone of Marlowe in Paustus when he has the conventional Christian friends of Paustus speak.

They are idiots and silly fools. The good angel of

Marlowe's conscience is involved in a genuinely dramatic dialectic with the evil angel. This is not reflected in

Marlowe's characterization of the protagonist's Christian companions. How different is the final speech of Corcut:

Then Selim, heare they brothers dying words. And marke them well, for ere thou die thy selfe. Thou Shalt perceiue all things will come to passe. That Corcut doth diuine before his death. 215

since my vaine flight from Paire Magnesia, Sellm I haue conuerst with Christians, And learn'd of them the way to saue my soule. And please the anger of the highest God. Tls he that made this pure Chrlstalllne vault Which hangeth ouer our unhapple heads. From thence he doth behold each sinners fault: And though our slnnes under our feete he treads. And for a while seem for to wlnke at us. But Is to recall us from our waves. (It Is but?) But If we do like head-strong sonnes neglect To hearken to our loulng fathers voyce. Then In his anger will he us relect. And glue us ouer to our wicked choyce. Sellm before his dreadfull malestle. There lies a booke written with bloudle lines. Where our offences all are reglstred. Which If we do not hastily repent. We are reseru'd to lasting punishment. Thou wretched Sellmus hast greatest need To ponder these things In thy secret thoughts. If thou consider what strange massacres And cruell murthers thou hast caus'd be done. Thlnke on the death of wofull Balazet. Doth not his ghoast stll haunt thee for reuenge? Sellm In Chlurlu didst thou set upon Our aged father In his sodalne flight: In Chlurlu shalt thou die a greeuous death. And If thou wilt not change thy greedle mind. Thy soul shall be tormented In darke hell. Where woe, and woe, and neuer ceasing woe. Shall sound about thy euer-damned soule. Now Sellm I haue spoken, let me die: I neuer will Intreate thee for my life. Sellm farewell: thou God of Christians, Recelue my dying soule Into thy hands. (Strangles him.)°

I should not wish at this time and within the limited context of this Inquiry to choose between Greene and Lodge as the author of this passage; I am confident

It was not written by Christopher Marlowe. Marlowe would neither have allowed a Christian apologist to be Invested with such calm nobility In the face of death nor does his

^Sellmus, Lines 2134-2173. 216

verse show the command of this middle, even flat, range of dignified pathos and thoughtful meditation. The general

good taste of the passage might argue more strongly for

Lodge, but Greene was moving to this style In his last plays, notably James IV, Hy contention Is that the biblio­

graphical evidence suggests that Greene saw the Marlovlan character of Sellmus, emphasized this aspect of the main character by open borrowings from Tamburlaine In order that the final judgment on his character given by Corcut would be all the more Impressive. Incidentally, I am Inclined to see a playhouse marking In the stage direction listed above.

This would. If true, enhance the possibility of performance of Sellmus after Greene's final revision, and before Creede obtained the copy.

In 1905, Mr. J. M. Robertson published his study

"Titus Compared with Locrine," This formed part of his larger study. Did Shakespeare Write "Titus Andronicus"? As we know, his answer was. No! Nevertheless, In addition to his general Indifference to bibliographical matters, exhibited pari passu throughout his work, Mr. Robertson

Illustrates graphically an Inadequacy of the old parallel passage study that has not as yet been sufficiently over­ come, even though his method has fallen from general favor. Mr. Robertson seems greatly Indifferent to the whole rhetorical tradition, especially the manifold de­ vices of figure and "composltlo" that formed the backbone of grammar school education. Since every literate man In 217

England held this tradition in common, closely similar effects cannot be stretched very far to prove common author­ ship. But even more importantly, attention to these figures does offer us some means of distinguishing among passages that otherwise would seem to have a close verbal parallelism. In the following passage, Mr. Robertson seeks to argue common authorship, Peele, for The Battle of Alcazar. Locrine, and

The Arraignment of Paris on the basis of verbal parallels. Compare again the rant of Humber (Loc., III, vi);

Where may I find some desert wilderness Where I may breathe out curses as I would . . . Where may I find some hollow uncouth rock Where I may damn, condemn, and ban my fill . . .;

with one in the Battle (V, i): Where shall I find some unfrequented place. Some uncouth walk where I may curse my fill . . .;

and the "revenge" lines in the rant of Corineus' ghost (Loc., V, iv) with those of Rubin Archis and Abdelmelec in the Battle (I, i). Yet again there is a somewhat close correspondence between the lines of Estrild (Loc., II, i):

The plains, my lord, garnished with Flora's wealth And overspread with parti-colou'd flowers . . . The airy hills enclosed with shady groves . . . Are equal to the groves of Thessaly, Where Phoebus with the learned ladies nine Delight themselves . . . The silent springs dance down with murmuring streams, and some in The Arraignment of Paris (I, 1), where Flora speaks These fields and groves and sweetest bowers Bestrew'd and deck'd with parti-colou'd flowers. Along the bubbling brooks and silver glide That at the bottom doth in silence slide . . . Where sacred Phoebe may delight to be. 218

Such echoes are substantially of the order of those we have above noted as between Peele's works and Titusj and Peele's Arraignment (1584) antedates Locrine«9

Before we comment upon this analysis, let us restore somewhat more fully the lines we find In the Malone Society

Reprint of Locrine In the first scene of the second Act. The plaines my Lord garnisht with Floras welth And ouerspred with party colored flowers. Do yeeld sweet contentatlon to my mind. The alerle hills enclosd with shadle groues. The groues replenlsht with sweet chirping birds. The birds resounding heauenly melodle. Are equall to the groues of Thessaly, Where Phoebus with the learned Ladles nine. Delight themselues with muslcke harmonie. And from the moisture of the mountalne tops. The silent springs daunce downe with murmuring streams. And water al y ground with cristal waues. The gentle blasts of Eurus modest wlnde, Moulng the pltterlng leaues of Slluanes woods. Do equall It with Tempes paradlce. And thus comforted all to one effect. Do make me thlnke these are the happle lies.10

At once, we see that the rhetorical figures In­ volved In the development of the passage are fundamentally different. The weight of Inference far from telling of a common authorship Is all on the side of different authors.

At least. It cannot be maintained that the same author Is repeating himself Insofar as his schemes of sentences are concerned,

?J,M. Robertson, Did Shakespeare Write "Titus Andronicus"? (London; Warts and Co., lyUb), pp. 86-87.

^^Locrlne. Lines 491-507. 219

When Robertson does turn to comparison of rhetorical figures, he finds pages of significance in the fact that

Locrine and Titus Andronicus both make extensive use of alliteration. While this last example is a kind of reductio ad absurdum, in the absence of a comprehensive study of the rhetorical patterns of the whole Elizabethan drama, we have not been able to make this kind of analysis yield a fraction of the rich ore which I am certain may be mined therein.

Finally, I should like to glance at one or two issues raised in Professor Baldwin's masterly survey of the drama of this period. Locrine has also several parallels with Greene's Orlando Purioso, collected by Sir Walter Greg. These, too, are borrowing on the part of Locrine. Mad Orlando in poetic fury instructs his page Orgalio to tell Apollo lie passe the Alpes, and up to Meroe, (I know he knoews that watrie lakish hill,)

The Alleyn MS reads

lie up the Alpes, and post to Meroe the watry lakishe hill. [Now follows a long discussion of Meroe.]

On this background, it is now clear that our pass­ age in Locrine (1595) Is the imitation in the following line, as Bemhardi pointed out, and that the line borrows from the form printed in the quarto, not that surviving in the Alleyn MS. lie passe the Alpes to watry Meroe. (Locrine. MSR, line 856) The author has simply dropped "and up" from the first line, fitting in watry" from the second line instead. It is evident also, as Bemhardi also pointed out that the whole speech 220

in Locrlne is based upon that in Orlando, and that another line is closely imitated, appearing in Locrine as "lie pull the fickle wheele from out her hands" (869) The imitated line in Orlando reads in the quarto, "And pull the harpe out of the minstrelis hands," but in the Alleyn MS, "and pull the harpe/ from out the ministrills h(ad)es." Here the "from out" of Locrine agrees with the MS, showing that the form available to the author of Locrine contained features of both— a "pretty kettle of fish" which we pass very hastily without compliments to the bibliographers. . . . Thus, the author of Locrine has had access pre­ dominantly to the quarto version, not that of the Alleyn MS of Orlando Purioso. The latter play ap­ pears to have been written in 1589, but was being acted by the Strange-Admiral combination early in 1592, and presumably had been acted late in 1591. A contemporary, however, thought that Strange's had only a second sale of the play. If Locrine was for the Queen's, and if Orlando belonged to them, then naturally the author would agree with the Queen's version, not with that in the Alleyn MS, which was apparently for the Streinge-Admiral organization. Thus, the quarto of Orlando should represent the version of the Queen's company. But since Locrine does agree in at least one point with the Alleyn MS, it is clear that the Queen's version used by Locrine had some features which do not appear in the quarto. In general, these borrowings of Locrine from Orlando thus indicate the same approxl^te date of construction for Locrine as do the others. A "pretty kettle of fish" would seem to be a

litotes. Nevertheless, we might untangle one or two of

the entwined strands. In Greg's remarkable study of the

quarto of Orlando and the "plot" and "part" in the Alleyn

MS, he created the very strong suggestion that we have in the quarto an abridgment of Greene's original manuscript.

This could well have been prepared for the changing for­ tunes of the company, so well set forth by Baldwin.

llBaldwin, 0£. cit., pp. 215-218. 221

These facts of structure for Queen's plays correlate significantly with the facts known about the company at this period. It had been made up from various companies in 1583# and had continued to appear as separate groups, especially in the provinces. There had been a particularly significant break about 1590. For the two plays at court 1589-90, "John Dutton and John Lanham" received the pay. Then the next season 1590-91, "Lawrence Dutton and John Dutton" received pay for four plays, and "John Laneham" received pay for one. There were thus two Queen's organizations at court this season. That there were two groups is also shown by the fact that while the Dutton group was performing one of its four court plays on February 14, 1591, another Queen's conipany was playing with Sussex's men at Southanqpton. This Queen's and Sussex's combination appears occasionally as late as 1594, and it was by it that Leir was acted. There were at least two Queen's companies in 1591. The following court season of 1591-92, there was only one play by a Queen's company at court, with no payee named. For the first time since 1581, the company is almost unrepresented. For 1592-93, the Queen's company do not appear at all. For 1593-94 once, doubtless the Queen's>Sussex group, payee unspeci­ fied, and never again. It is evident that the main organization of Queen's men deteriorated or ceased about 1591.12 Locrine. as regards length, 2280 lines, falls within the area of suspicion of abridgment, 1500-2400 lines.13

In its present form, I waver as to whether it is a second abridgment, carried out in the company of Greene's original

revision and probable abridgment. But were this the case, we should have to absolve Greene from responsibility for

various ineptitudes throughout the quarto; he may very well have revised a full two part play of Tylney's. Thus,

"the Sixt Act" might indicate just what it seems to. Since

l^Baldwin, o£. cit., pp. 229-230.

13oreg, Two Eliz. . . . , op. cit.. p. 94. 222

we are able to compare one fairly substantial passage in

Selimus with an earlier version of the same passage, and

since this shows, however slight, an expansion of the

original material, we have at least one positive indication

that Selimus is in no way an abridgment, even though it is clearly a revision of an earlier play. Nevertheless,

confidence in this matter as in so many others related to these issues awaits a more comprehensive study of the

entire body of drama of this period with a systematic investigation of these features as its central purpose. Let us suppose, for example, that the Quarto

Locrine is an abridgment of Greene’s original revision.

There is no reason to suppose that it would not have been made by the same abridger-reviser that prepared the

Quarto Orlando. Since this writer would have had access

to the manuscripts that lie behind both of the above

Quarto's and the Alleyn "plot" and "part", the problem

of the borrowing, posed by Baldwin, admits of simple

solution. But is it necessary to invoke such a complex

state of affairs? Surely Greene had access to or could recall his work on Orlando, the original manuscript re­

ferred to above. Since he is the likely reviser of Locrine, the problem of reflecting the manuscript source of the Alleyn MS rather than the abridged quarto does not

seem inherently insoluble.

As to the second main issues raised by Baldwin, 223

admittedly, these resist any simple conjectures. Baldwin

sets the scene for these tangled matters.

A contemporary, trying to embarrass Greene, gives a discreditable account of how Orlando came to Strange's company. Cuthbert Ounnycatcher In his reply to Greene's connycatchlng exposures says In his Defence of Connycatchl%. "What If I should proue you a Conny-catcher, Malster R.G. would It not make you blush at the matter? . , . Aske the Queens Players, If you sold them not Orlando Purioso for twenty Nobles, ajid when they were In the country, sold the same Play to the Lord Admirals men for as much more . . . 1 heare when this was objected, that you made this excuse: that there was no more faith to be held with Plalers, than with them that valued faith at the price of a feather: for as they were Comaedlans to act, so the actions of their H u e s were Caméléon like, that they were uncertalne, variable, tlme- pleasers, men that measure honestle by profite, and that regarded their Authors not by desart, but by necessltle of time.

Baldwin goes on to show that Greene as much as admits the truth of this charge In a later pamphlet. Now let us try to reconstruct a probable sequence of events from this account. Greene probably furnished the Queen's Men with a fair copy of Orlando; In all likelihood, he

sent along his foul papers, although, perhaps not. If not, then he might have prepared from these papers a fair copy for the Admiral's men. He may, however, have simply had two fair copies made from the first, reserving one for

Just such a purpose as he effected. There Is no reason to suppose the copy for the Admiral's men might not have received a few touches and changes here and there. This

Is the copy that provided the plot and part of Orlando for

^^Baldwln, op. clt.. p. 101, 224

Alleyn, The Orlando Quarto, we recall, is probably an

abridgment for touring of the fair copy provided for the

Queens. Now the known dates of these writings and per­

formances provide an interesting commentary on the

borrowings in Locrine noted by Baldwin and giving rise to the bibliographical tangle.

Cunnycatcher's pamphlet was entered S.R. April 21, 1592. How long previously it had been written we do not know directly. But it must be significant that at this time the Admiral's company, whatever it was, was co­ operating with Strange's, and Strange's performed Orlando on February 22, 1592 for a single performance. Since this is only two days after Henslowe's account book opens, it is likely that this is the end of the run for Orlando with Strange's. Further, Alleyn had at some time evidently himself played Orlando, and preserved his written part. If there had been only the one performance by the Admiral's (Strange's), Cuthbert Cunnycatcher is not likely to have known about the matter.15

It would, thus, seem that Greene had prepared a copy for the Admiral-Strange company at least by the autuiiKiof 1591. This accords well with the very date on which he most probably was revising Locrine. Now since his "fair copy" of Orlando, which he was in process of selling a second time to the Admiral's, was ready at hand, perhaps receiving here and there a touching up, we have an adequate explanation of the way in which Locrine could re­ flect both the Quarto from the Queen's version and the

Alleyn MS, The inference is that Greene kept his foul

15Ibid.. p. 102. 225 papers from the draft of Orlando sold to the Queen’s in

1589. In 1591# he used material from this in his revision of Locrine. Going over his material a second time, and possibly at this very time, deciding to prepare a second

"fair copy" for sale to the Admiral's men, he incorporated such improvements as struck his fancy both in Locrine and the second fair copy of Orlando. Of course, it goes with­ out saying that all this is far from proof; but it accords perfectly well, so far as I can see, with all available evidence. Bibliography

Anon. Locrine. ed. Ronald B. McKerrow. Malone Society Reprints; Oxford: H. Hart, 1908.

Anon. Selimus. ed. W. Bang. Malone Society Reprints; dhiswibh,England: Charles Whittingham and Co., 1908. Bald, R. C. "The Locrine and George-a-Greene Title-page Inscriptions." Library (becember. 1934) pp. 295-305. Baldwin, T. W. On The Literary Genetics of Shakespeare's Plays. Urbana: ïhe University of Illinois Press, 1959. Baskervill, Charles. The Elizabethan Jig yid Related Song Drama. Chicago! The University of Chicago PressJ 1929. Brooke, C. P. Tucker. The Shakespeare Apocrypha. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 191b.

Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1923. ï-IvT Chettle, Henry. M n d Heart's Dreame. ed. G. B. Harrison, London: John Lane, Bodley Head, 1923. Crawford, Charles. Collectanea. First Series; Stratford-on- Avon. Shakespeare Head Press, 1906.

Cunliffe, J. W. "Early English Tragedy." Cambridge History of English Literature. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1910. V Greene, Robert. The Plays and Poems, ed. J. Churton Collins. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1905. I and II. The Life and Complete Works, ed. A. E. Grosart. The Huth Libraiy; London; 18bl-l883.

. Menaghgn. ed. G. B. Harrison. Oxford : Bodley "Head Press, 1927. . Pandosto. ed. P. G. Thomas. Shakespeare Classics "Series; London: 1907.

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Greg, Sir W. W. "Three Manuscript Notes by Sir George Buc." Library. XII (December, 1931) PP. 307-321.

______. The Editorial Problem in Shakespeare. 2nd. ed.; Oxford; Olarendon t*ress, '195'l.

Two Elizabethan Stage Abridgements: The Battle of Alcazar and Orlando Purioso. The~Malone Society; Oxford: Oxford University, 1922.

Hubbard, frank G. "Locrine and Selimus. Shakespeare Studies. 05ie Department of English in the University of Wisconsin; Madison: 1916.

Jacquot, Jean. "Ralegh's 'Hellish Verses' and the 'Tragicall Ralgne of Selimus. ' " Modern Language Review. XLVIII (January,1953). Jewkes, W. T. Act Division in Elizabethan and Jacobean Plays, 1583-I6I6 . tiamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1058.

Kirschbaum, Leo. Shakespeare and the Stationers. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 1955. Maxwell, Baldwin. Studies in the Shakespeare Apocrypha. New York: King's Crown Press, 1950. Muir, Kenneth. "Letter to the Editor." The Times Literary Supplement. London: August 12, 1944. Peacham, Henry. The Garden of Eloquence. Gainesville, Florida: Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints, 1954. Robertson, J. M. Did Shakespeare Write "Titus Andronicus"? London: Watts and Co., 1905• Rowse, A. L. Sir Walter Ralegh and the Throchmortons, Lond onl Macmillan, 1962.

Spenser, Edmund. Complaints. ed. W. Renwick. London: The Scholartis Press, 1928.

Strathmann, E. A. Sir Walter Ralegh, A Study in Elizabethan Scepticism. New York; Columbia University Press, 1951

Tannenbaum, S. A. ShakesperIan Scraps and Other Elizabethan Fragments. New York: Columbia University Press, imr — Wallace, Willard. Sir Walter Raleigh. Princeton: The University Press, 1959. 6^ ^